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SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 



MORE WORLDS THAN ONE : the Creed of the 
Philosopher, the Hope of the Christian. 



THE MARTYRS OF SCIENCE : Galileo, Tycho 
Brahe, and Kepler. 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE Practically Described. 
Cr. 8vo., with Illustrations. 



THE STEREOSCOPE Practically Described. Cr. 
8vo,, with Illustrations. 



More Worlds Than One 



THE CREED OF THE PHILOSOPHER, 
AND THE HOPE OF THE CHRISTIAN. 



BY 



SIR DAVID BREWSTER, K.H., M.A., D.C.L. 
It 




Sieuth (Thousand, 

CORRECTED AND GREATLY ENLARGED. 



NEW YORK: 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 
Fourth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street. 



QB54 



By Transfer from 
U.S. Naval Academy 
Aug. 26 1932 



5^ 



*$ 






CONTENTS. 



PAOa 

Preface, ......... v 

Introduction, . - ... 1 

Chap. I. Religious Aspect of the Question, ... 7 

II. Description of the Solar System, . . . . 17 

m. The Geological Condition of the Earth, . . 38 

IV. Analogy between the Earth and the other Planets, 64 

V. The Sun, Moon, and Satellites, .... 92 

VI. The System of Comets, 115 

VII. On the Nebular Hypothesis, .... 120 

VIII. The Motion of the Solar System round a distant Centre, 125 

IX. Religious Difficulties, 138 

X. Single Stars and Binary Systems, . . . 163 
XL Clusters of Stars and Nebulae, . . . .172 

XII. General Summary, 182 

XHL Reply to Objections drawn from Geology, . . 198 

XIV. Objections from the Nature of Nebulae, . . 210 
XV. Objections from the Nature of the Fixed Stars and 

Binary Systems, ...... 218 

XVI. Objections from the Nature of the Planets, . 230 

XVH. The Future of the Universe, ..... 256 



PREFACE. 



Having been requested by the Editor of the 
North British Revieiv to give an account of a work 
entitled Of a Plurality of Worlds, an Essay, I 
undertook the task, in the belief that it contained 
sentiments similar to my own, and that I should 
have the gratification of illustrating and recommend- 
ing a doctrine which had long been the Creed of the 
Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian. I was 
surprised, however, to find that, under a title tend- 
ing to mislead the public, the author had made an 
elaborate attack upon opinions consecrated, as I had 
thought, by Eeason and Eevelation ; and had, in 
conducting his argument, not only adopted the 
Nebular Hypothesis, so universally condemned as a 



VI PREFACE. 

dangerous speculation, but had taken a view of the 
condition of the Solar System, calculated to disparage 
the science of Astronomy, and to throw a doubt over 
the noblest of its truths. 

Under ordinary circumstances I should have con- 
tented myself with such an analysis and criticism 
of the work as could be given within the narrow 
limits of a Keview ; but while the boldness of the 
author's speculations, and the ingenuity with which 
they were maintained, required a more elaborate 
examination of them, the new views which pre- 
sented themselves to me during the study of the 
subject, demanded a copious detail of facts which 
could be given only in a separate Treatise. I 
have, therefore, devoted the principal part of the 
volume to a statement of the arguments in favour 
of a Plurality of Worlds, and have endeavoured, 
in the subsequent chapters, to answer the various 
objections urged against it by the author of the 
Essay, and to examine the grounds upon which he 
has attempted to establish the extraordinary doc- 
trines that the Earth is "the oasis in the desert of 



PREFACE. Vll 

our system/' — "the largest solid opaque globe in 
it," and "really the largest planetary body in the 
Solar System, — its domestic hearth, and the only 
world in the Universe I" 

St. Leonard's College, St. Anpeiws, 
April 25>th f 1864. 



CHAPTEE II. 

DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 

In order to appreciate the force of the argument 
for a plurality of worlds, derived from the similarity 
of our Earth to the other planets of the Solar system, 
we must call the attention of the reader to a popular 
description of the magnitudes, distances, and general 
phenomena of the different bodies that compose it. 

There is, perhaps, no sight in the material world 
more magnificent than that of the starry firmament. 
Seen from our earliest years, it may have ceased to 
excite our wonder, but no sooner has science taught 
us its true nature than it reappears in all its glory, 
like the gloomy landscape whose varied beauties a 
burst of sun-light has revealed. In the stillness of 
night, when the moral world is asleep, — when the 
aspen leaf has ceased to flutter, and no sound is 
heard save that of the remote waterfall, or the rest- 
less ocean, or the zephyr breath among the distant 
foliage, the silver Moon, the brilliant Planet, and 
the twinkling Star, are the beacon-lights which guide 
the eye through the brilliant expanse above. 

B 



18 MOKE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. II. 

The orbs of heaven seem at first fixed and motion- 
less, like the scene around, but ere long, before our 
survey or our reverie is over, we perceive that they 
have all been in motion. The Moon has neared the 
horizon : one planet has descended in the West, — 
another has risen from the Eastern sea, and every 
star in the sky has shared in the general movement. 
When the observer has discovered that he alone has 
moved, — that, night after night, the Moon and Planets 
have alone changed their place among the stars, and 
that the Earth on which he stands, and the planets, 
whose motion he has observed, form a system of their 
own, while the thousands of stars, among which they 
moved, are fixed at distances invariable, he has 
arrived at the leading truths in astronomy. 

But to the contemplative mind, the firmament of 
stars and planets has a deeper interest. Everything 
around us, save it, is in a state of transition. Be- 
side the fleeting changes which the return of the 
seasons brings, the landscape around us is every year 
changing its aspect. The heath is robbed of its 
purple, and the yellow harvest waves over its once 
russet breast. The forests of our youth have ceased 
to give us shelter, — now the roof-trees of our homes, 
— now the floating bulwarks on the deep. The very 
places of our birth have been removed or effaced, 
and the lichen has encrusted the record on the tomb- 
stones of our fathers. All around is change, — but 
the gorgeous creations in the sky are still there, un- 



CHAP. II. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 19 

dimmed in brightness — unchanged in grandeur, — 
performing, with unflagging pace and unvarying 
precision, their daily, their annual, and their secular 
rounds. Upon these same heavens, just as we see 
them now, bespangled with the same planets and the 
same stars, our first parents gazed when they entered 
and when they quitted Paradise. The same constel- 
lations, Arcturus, Orion, and the Pleiades had sung 
together when the foundations of the world were laid. 1 
and they rolled in darkness over Calvary, when the 
Prince of Life was slain. They are truly the only 
objects in the universe which all nations have wit- 
nessed, and all people admired. They presided at 
the horoscope of our birth, and they will throw their 
pale radiance over the green mounds beneath which 
we are destined to lie. 

Such are the associations with which we look at the 
firmament above, and deep must be the interest with 
which we contemplate the history and purpose of its 
mysterious forms. It was, doubtless, under such 
associations that the great Philosopher of Mind 2 gave 
utterance to the feelings with which he contemplated 
the two cardinal phases of the physical and the moral 
world. 

Methinks I ever tremble when I scan 

The Starlit Heavens, the sense of Right in Man. 

In surveying the material universe thus shadowed 
forth in the firmament, the first and the grandest 

l Job ix. 9. 2 Immanuel Kant 



20 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. II. 

object which arrests our attention is the glorious 
Sun, — the centre and soul of the solar system, — 
the lamp that lights it, the fire that heats it, — 
the magnet that guides and controls it, — the foun- 
tain of colour which gives its azure to the sky, 
its verdure to the fields, its rainbow hues to the 
gay world of flowers, and the "purple light of 
love" to the marble cheek of youth and beauty. 
This globe, probably of burning gas, enveloping 
a solid nucleus, is 880,000 miles in diameter, above 
a hundred times that of our globe, and five hun- 
dred times larger in bulk than all the planets put 
together ! It revolves upon its axis in twenty-five 
days, and throws off its light with the velocity of 
192,000 miles in a second. Sometimes by the naked 
eye, but frequently even by small telescopes, large 
black spots, many thousand miles in diameter, are 
seen upon its surface, and are evidently openings in 
the luminous atmosphere, through which we see the 
opaque solid nucleus, or the real body of the sun. 

Around, and nearest the sun, at a distance of 
thirty-six millions of miles, revolves the planet Mer- 
cury, with a day of twenty-four hours, and a year of 
eighty-eight days. Supposing the light of the sun 
to decrease as the square of the distance, he will 
receive nearly seven times as much light and heat as 
the earth. Through the telescope some astronomers 
have observed spots on his surface, and mountains 
several miles in height. 



CHAP. II. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 21 

Next to Mercury the planet Venus revolves at the 
distance of sixty-eight millions of miles, with a day of 
nearly twenty-four hours, and a year of 225 days. 
Her diameter is 7700 miles, a little less than that of 
the earth. She changes her phases like the moon. 
exhibits spots on her surface, and, according to 
Schroeter, has an atmosphere and mountains nearly 
twenty miles in height. The light and heat which 
she receives from the sun is about double of that 
which is received by the earth. 1 

The next body of the Solar system is our own 
Earth — our birthplace, and soon to be our grave. 
Its distance from the sun is ninety-six millions of 
miles ; its equatorial diameter 7926 miles ; the length 
of its year 365 days six hours, and of its day twenty- 
four hours. The form of the Earth is that of a sphere 
flattened at the poles like an orange, the difference 
of its diameters being 26^ miles. Its superficies is 
divided into continents and seas, the continents occu- 
pying one-third, and the seas two-thirds of its whole 
surface. The land, sometimes level and sometimes 
undulating, occasionally rises into groups and ranges 
of mountains, the highest of which does not exceed 
five miles. The Earth is surrounded with an aerial 
envelope or atmosphere, which is computed to be 
about forty-five miles in height, though the region 

1 From the rare appearance and want of permanence in the spots of Mercury 
and Venus, Sir John Herschel is of opinion, " that we do not see as in the moon 
the real surface of these planets, but only their atmospheres, much loaded with 
clouds, and which may serve to mitigate the otherwise intense glare of their sun- 
shine/* — Outlines of Astronomy, § 509. 



22 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. II. 

of clouds does not reach much above the summits 
of the highest mountains. 

The Earth is accompanied by a Moon or satellite, 
whose distance is 237,000 miles, her diameter 2160 
miles, and the time of her revolution round the 
Earth twenty-eight days. Her surface is composed 
of hill and dale, of rocks and mountains nearly two 
miles high, and of circular cavities, sometimes five 
miles in depth, and forty in diameter, which are 
believed to be the remains of extinct volcanoes. She 
possesses neither lakes nor seas ; and we cannot dis- 
cover with the telescope any traces of living beings, 
or any monuments of their hands, though we hope 
that these objects will be seen with some magnificent 
telescope which may yet be constructed. Viewing 
the Earth as the third planet in order from the sun, 
can we doubt that it is a globe like the rest, poised 
in ether like them, and, like them, moving round 
the central luminary ? 

Next, beyond the Earth, is the red-coloured planet 
Mars, with a day of about twenty-five hours, and 
revolving round the sun in 687 days, at the distance 
of one hundred and forty-two millions of miles. His 
diameter is 4100 miles, and his surface exhibits spots 
of different hues, — the seas, according to Sir John 
Herschel, being green, and the land red. The spots 
which have been seen on this planet by several astro- 
nomers, are not always equally distinct, but when 
seen "they offer," as Sir John Herschel observes, 



CHAP. II. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 23 

u the appearance of forms, considerably definite and 
highly characteristic, brought successively into view 
by the rotation of the planet, from the assiduous 
observation of which it has even been found practi- 
cable to construct a rude chart of tfye surface of the 
planet. The variety in the spots may arise from the 
planet not being destitute of atmosphere and cloud ; 
and what adds greatly to the probability of this, is 
the appearance of brilliant white spots at its poles, 
which have been conjectured, with some probability, 
to be snow, as they disappear when they have been 
long exposed to the sun, and are greatest when just 
emerging from the long night of their polar winter, 
the snow line then extending to about six degrees 
from the pole. 7 ' 1 In a sketch of this planet, as seen 
in the pure atmosphere of Calcutta by Mr. Grant, it 
appears, to use his words, " actually as a little world," 
and as the Earth would appear at a distance with its 
seas and continents of different shades. 

Hitherto we have been surveying worlds at a re- 
spectful distance from each other, and having days, 
and nights, and seasons, and aspects, of the same 
character ; but we now arrive at a region in space 
where some great catastrophe has taken place. At 
the distance of about two hundred and fifty millions 
of miles from the sun, corresponding to a period of 
about 1500 days, astronomers long ago predicted 
the existence of a large planet, cccupying the wide 

1 Outli?ies of Astronomy, § 510. 



24 



MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. 



CHAP. II. 



space between Mars and Jupiter. In the beginning 
of the present century, one very small planet was 
discovered in this locality by M. Piazzi; and after 
other two had been discovered, one by himself and 
the other by Mr. Harding, Dr. Olbers hazarded the 
opinion that the three planets were fragments of a 
larger one which had burst; and this remarkable 
theory has been almost placed beyond a doubt by the 
discovery, in the same place, of thirty fragments in 
all, chiefly by M. Gasparis of Naples, and our eminent 
countryman Mr. Hind, by whom no fewer than ten 
of these bodies have been discovered. 

The following table contains the distances from the 
sun, and the periodic times of these remarkable bodies, 
the distance of the earth being unity or 1, — 





Mean dis- 


Periodic 




Mean dis- 


Periodic 




tance from 


Time in 




tance from 


Time in 




Sun. 


Years. 




Sun. 


Years. 


Ceres, 


2.767 


4.604 


Psyche, 


2.947 


5.058 


Pallas, 


2.772 


4.617 


Thetis, 


2.480 


3.904 


Juno, 


2.669 


4.360 


Melpomene, 


2.294 


3.475 


Vesta, 


2.361 


3.629 


Fortuna, 


2.446 


3.825 


Astrsea, 


2.577 


4.138 


Massilia, 


2.449 


3.833 


Hebe, 


2.425 


3.777 


Calliope, 


2.913 


4.972 


Iris, 


2.385 


3.684 


Lutetia, 


2.434 


3.800 


Flora, 


2.201 


3.267 


Thalia, 


2.625 


4.257 


Metis, 


2.387 


3.681 


Proserpine, 


2.653 


4 324 


Hygeia, 


3.151 


5.594 


Phocea, 


2.393 


3.704 


Parthenope, 


2.448 


3.830 


Themis, 


3.160 


5.622 


Victoria, 


2.335 


3.568 


Enterpe, 


3.347 


5.597 


Egeria, 


2.582 


4.150 


Bellona, 


2.781 


4.640 


Irene, 


2.582 


4.149 


Amphitrite, 


2.557 


5.153 


Eunomia, 


2.640 


4.289 


Another, not named. 





CHAP. IT. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 25 

The distance of Flora, the nearest of these aste- 
roids, is 2.201, and its period 3.267 years ; and 
that of Euterpe, the most distant, 3.347, with a 
period of 5.597 years. While this sheet was 
printing, Mr.. Hind discovered the thirtieth of 
these planets, making the tenth discovered by 
himself. 

Beyond this remarkable group is situated the planet 
Jupiter, a world of huge magnitude, 1320 .times 
greater in bulk than our Earth, revolving round its 
axis in ten hours, and round the sun in 4333 days, 
(a little less than twelve years,) at the distance of 
four hundred and eighty-five millions of miles. His 
form is that of an oblate spheroid, his equatorial being 
to his polar diameter as 107 to 100. His diameter 
is 90,000 miles, and he is attended by four Moons, 
or satellites, the average size of which is a little 
greater than that of our moon. His surface ex- 
hibits bright spots and dark bands or belts, which, 
though they have always the same direction, vary in 
breadth and in position, occasionally running out 
into branches or subdivisions, and dark spots. Sir 
John Herschel is of opinion, that the belts are tracts 
of corresponding clear sky in the planet's atmo- 
sphere, through which the darker body of the planet 
is seen, and that they are produced by currents like 
our trade-winds, but of a more steady and decided 
character, owing to the great velocity of his daily 
rotation. 



26 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IL 

The following are the periods and distances of 
Jupitei's satellites, — 







Periods. 




Distances in 




Days. 


Hours. 


Min. 


Radii of Jupiter. 


1. 


1 


18 


28 


6.049 


2. 


3 


13 


15 


9*623 


3. 


7 


3 


43 


15.350 


4. 


16 


16 


32 


26.998 



Next to Jupiter is the remarkable planet Saturn, 
accompanied with eight satellites, and surrounded by 
a ring. The distance of Saturn from the sun is 
eight hundred and ninety millions of miles, his 
annual period twenty-nine and a half years, and the 
length of his day ten and a half hours. His diameter 
is 79,000 miles, and his equatorial is to his polar dia- 
meter as 12 to 11. According to very recent observa- 
tions, the ring is divided into four different rings, as 
shewn in the gilt figure of Saturn. Mr. Jacob has 
distinctly seen a fine division through more than 
half the circumference of the outer ring. It ap- 
pears from some recent observations of Mr. Hippisley, 
that the middle ring is convex, and thicker in the 
middle than at either of its edges, and that the outer 
ring is sensibly raised above the edge of the inner. 
Mr. Bond, who thinks that the rings are fluid, is of 
opinion that the number of rings is continually 
changing, and that their maximum number, in the 
normal condition of the mass, does not exceed twenty. 
According to Mr. Bond, the power which sustains the 
centre of gravity of the ring is not in the planet itself, 



CHAP. II. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 27 

but in his satellites ; and the satellites, though con- 
stantly disturbing the ring, actually sustain it in the 
very act of perturbation. 

Mr. Otto Struve and Mr. Bond have lately studied, 
with the great Munich telescope, at the observatory 
of Pulkowa, the third ring of Saturn, which Mr. 
Lassell and Mr. Bond found to be fluid, from having 
observed through it the body of the planet, which is 
of an amber brown colour, as if seen through a film 
of smoke, the colour of the ring, when seen off the 
planet being of a slaty character. The principal 
division of the outer ring is not black, but of an 
amber brown. 1 They saw distinctly the dark inter- 
val between this fluid ring and the two old ones, and 
even measured its dimensions ; and they perceived 
at its inner margin an edge feebly illuminated, which 
they thought might be the commencement of a 
fourth ring. These astronomers are of opinion, that 
the fluid ring is not of very reoent formation, and 
that it is not subject to rapid change ; and they have 
come to the extraordinary conclusion, that the inner 
border of the ring has, since the time of Huygens, 
been gradually approaching to the body of Saturn, 
and that we may expect sooner or later, perhaps in 
some dozen of years, to see the rings united with the 
body of the planet 



1 These observations on the colour of the part of Saturn seen through the trans- 
parent ring, and on the division of the outer ring, were made by Mr. Jacob at 
Madras. 



28 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. II. 

The following are the dimensions of Saturn's rings, 
when they were supposed to be only two in number, 
according to the measurements of Struve, one second 
corresponding to 4400 miles — 

Miles. 

1. Exterior diameter of the Exterior ring, 40".095 176,418 

2. Interior diameter of the Exterior ring, 35 ".289 155,272 

3. Exterior diameter of the Interior ring, 34".475 151,690 

4. Interior diameter of the Interior ring, 26".668 117,389 

5. Equatorial diameter of Saturn, . 17" 991 79,160 

6. Distance of the Interior ring from planet, 4' , .339 19,090 

7. Breadth of the division between the rings, 0".408 1,791 

8. Thickness of the ring, . . . 0".050 220 

A singular fact in the structure of Saturn, not yet 
explained, was observed by Struve, who found that 
the inner edge of the interior ring was 943 miles 
nearer the body of the planet on the west side than 
on the east side. 

The following table shews the distances and perio- 
dic times of the satellites of Saturn, — 

Periods. Distance in Radii 

Days. Hours. Min. of Saturn. 

1. Mimas, 22 37 3.361 

2. Enceladus, 1 9 53 4.312 

3. Tethys, 1 21 18 5.340 

4. Dione, 2 17 42 6.840 

5. Rhea, 4 12 25 2.553 

6. Titan, 15 22 41 22.145 

7. Hyperion, 22 12 28. 

8. Japetus, 79 7 54 64. 

The seventh satellite, Hyperion, was lately dis- 
covered on the same night by Mr. Lassell, Liverpool, 
and Professor Bond of Cambridge, U.S. 



CHAP. II. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 29 

Beyond Saturn, at a distance from the sun of one 
thousand eight hundred millions of miles, is placed 
the planet Uranus, discovered by Sir William 
Herschel. Its year, or annual period, is eighty-four 
years, and the length of its day nine and a half hours. 
Its diameter is 34,500 miles, and it is attended by 
eight satellites, six of which were discovered by Sir 
William Herschel, and the other two, a few years 
ago, by Mr. Lassell of Liverpool. 

The following are the periods and distances of the 
satellites of Uranus. 







Periods. 




Distances in Radii 




Days. 


Hours. 


Min. 


of Uranus. 


1. 


4 










2. 


8 


16 


56 


17.0 


3. 


10 


23 





19.8 


4. 


13 


11 


7 


22.8 


5. 


38 


2 





45.5 


6. 


107 


12 





91.0 



The remotest planet of our system, the planet 
Neptune, discovered theoretically in 1846 by Adams 
and Leverrier, and first recognised in the heavens by 
M. Galle of Berlin, is about 42,000 miles in diameter, 
and performs its annual revolution in 60,127 days, 
(about 165 years,) at the distance of nearly three 
thousand millions of miles from the sun. It is ac- 
companied with one, or probably two, satellites ; and 
there is reason to believe that it is surrounded with a 
ring like Saturn. The satellite discovered by Mr. 
Lassell revolves round the planet in five days and 



30 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. II. 

twenty-one hours, at the distance of about 252,000 
miles, or twelve radii of the planet. 

Having thus travelled from the centre to the verge 
of the planetary system, — from the effulgent orb of 
day to that almost Cimmerian twilight where Phoebus 
could scarcely see to guide his steeds, let us ponder 
a while over the startling yet instructive sights which 
we have encountered in our course. Adjoining the 
sun, we find Mercury and Venus, with days and 
seasons like ours. Upon reaching our own planet, 
we recognise in it the same general features, but we 
find it larger in magnitude, and possessing the ad- 
ditional distinction of a satellite and a race of living 
beings to rejoice in the pre-eminence. In contrast 
with Mars, our earth still maintains its superiority 
both in size and equipments ; but, upon advancing 
a little farther into space, our pride is rebuked and 
our fears evoked, when we reach the part of our 
system where thirty asteroids, relics of a once 
mighty planet, are revolving in dissevered orbits, and 
warning the vain astronomer of another world that 
a similar fate may await his own. Dejected, but not 
despairing, we pass onward, and, as if in bright con- 
trast with the confusion and desolation we have wit- 
nessed, there bursts upon our sight the splendid orb 
of Jupiter, proudly enthroned amid his four attendant 
satellites. When compared with so glorious a crea- 
tion, our own earth dwindles into insignificance. It 
is no longer the monarch of the planetary throng, 



CHAP. II. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 31 

and we blush at the recollection that sovereigns and 
pontiffs, and even philosophers, made it the central 
ball, around which the Sun and Moon and planets, 
and even the stars themselves, revolved in obsequious 
subjection. The dignity of being the seat of intel- 
lectual and animal life, however, still seems to be 
our own ; and if our globe does not swell so largely 
to the eye, or shine so brightly in the night, it has 
yet been the seat of glorious dynasties, — of mighty 
empires, — of heroes that have bled for their country, — 
of martyrs who have died for their faith, — and of 
sages who have unravelled the very universe we are 
surveying. Pursuing our outward course, a new 
wonder is presented to us in the gorgeous appendages 
of Saturn, encircled with his brilliant rings, and with 
eight moons, for the use, doubtless, of living beings. 
Advancing onwards, we encounter Uranus, with his 
eight pledges that he is the seat of life ; and after 
passing the new planet Neptune, and his one or pro- 
bably two attendants, at the frontier of our system, 
we reach what is the region, and what may be re- 
garded as the home, of comets. 

Comets, or wandering stars, as they have been 
called, are those celestial bodies most of which appear 
occasionally only within the limits of the Solar sys- 
tem. They move in elliptical orbits, in one of the 
foci of which the sun is placed; but, unlike the 
planets, which always move from west to east, the 
comets revolve in orbits inclined at all possible 



32 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE, CHAP. IL 

angles, and move in all possible directions. The 
movements of several hundred comets which have 
been observed, must be chiefly executed within that 
vast and untenanted region, which lies between the 
nearest known fixed star and the orbit of Neptune, 
an interval equal to six thousand times the distance 
of that planet from the sun, or twenty-one million 
million of miles. What is their occupation there, or 
what it is here, when they are our visitors, we cannot 
venture to guess. That they do not perform the 
functions of planets is obvious, from their very nature ; 
and there is no appearance of their importing any- 
thing but vapour into our system, or of their export- 
ing anything to another. 

The general appearance of a comet is that of a 
faint round nebula, densest in the centre, like a piece 
of pale cloud through which stars are visible. Many 
of these comets have tails, increasing as they approach 
the sun. These tails are sometimes short, and some- 
times so long as to stretch from the horizon to the 
zenith. The great comet of 1680, which produced 
such a sensation in London, was visible for four 
months. Its greatest distance from the sun was 
estimated at 127 times the distance of the earth 
from the sun. Its tail was 120 millions of miles long, 
and its velocity 880,000 miles in an hour. When it 
was nearest the sun its distance from him was only 
144,000 miles, or about one-sixth of the sun's diame- 
ter, and its heat from this cause so great that Sir 



CHAP. II. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 33 

Isaac Newton computed it to be 2000 times that of 
red hot iron. Dr. Halley made its period only 575 
years, but Encke makes it 8800, and Argelander 
2888 years. 

A comet still more remarkable was seen in Eng- 
land on the 17th March 1843. Its nucleus had the 
appearance of a planetary disc, and had the bright- 
ness of a star of the first or second magnitude. It 
had a double tail divided by a dark line. At the 
Cape of Good Hope it was seen in full daylight, and 
in the immediate vicinity of the sea ; but the most 
remarkable fact in its history was its near approach 
to the sun, its distance from his surface being only 
one fourteenth of his diameter. The heat to which 
it was exposed, therefore, was much greater than 
that which Sir Isaac Newton ascribed to the comet of 
1680. Sir John Herschel has computed that it must 
have been 24 times greater than that which was pro- 
duced in the focus of Parker's burning lens, 32 inches 
in diameter, which melts crystals of quartz and agate. 
In the interesting work On cometic orbits by Edward 
Cooper, Esq. of Markree Castle, the periods of those 
comets that move in elliptic orbits vary from four years 
to about 15,000 ; but for obvious reasons, we cannot 
place much confidence in the higher numbers. 

The tails of comets have occasionally exhibited 
very remarkable phenomena. In some, such as that 
of 1825, the tail consists of several streams of diverg- 
ing light in a state of quick and constant change. 





34 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. II, 

The nucleus of the comet of 1811 sent out rapid 
coruscations to the very end of its tail ; and the 
comet of 1824 exhibited two tails diametrically oppo- 
site, the one directed to the sun being the smallest 
and faintest. 

Some comets have passed near the earth, and others 
may pass still nearer it ; but even if they should not 
produce those tremendous effects which Laplace has 
indicated, and if their great rarity and rapid motion 
should hinder them from acting upon our seas, or 
changing the axis of our globe, a sweep of their train 
of gas or of vapour would not be a pleasing salutation 
to living beings. The greatest distance of the most 
distant comet that has been observed, falls short of 
the distance of the nearest fixed star by nine million 
million of miles. Placing ourselves at this distance, 
how ridiculous appears the idea, so long and devoutly 
cherished, that the heavens, with all their host, re- 
volved round our little planet ! At that point the 
earth is not even visible, and the whole starry crea- 
tion, and our sun itself dwindled into a star, stand 
fixed and immovable. 

Till within the last forty years it was the universal 
belief among astronomers that every comet strayed 
far beyond the limits of the Solar system, the shortest 
period of any of those that had been observed being 
about seventy years, indicating the immense distance 
which it must have traversed beyond the orbit of 
Neptune. In 1818, however, M. Pons discovered a 



CHAP. II. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 35 

comet, now called Encke's Comet, whose period was 
not above three years and jive months, and whose 
orbit, extending inwards as far as that of Mercury, 
did not reach beyond the orbit of Pallas. Other Jive 
comets, whose periods are 5^ 5f , 6f, 7£, and sixteen 
years, have been discovered within the limits of our 
system. Among these bodies, the comet of Biela, 
discovered in 1826, appeared to separate into two 
distinct comets with parallel tails, but after a certain 
time it resumed its single state. M. Damoiseau 
having predicted that this comet would pass within 
18,000 miles of a point in the earth's orbit, the pub- 
lication of this fact excited such an alarm in Paris, 
that M. Arago was summoned from his studies to 
allay the terror of the community. The fears of the 
people, however, will not appear unreasonable, when 
we recollect that Sir John Herschel has stated that 
the orbit of this comet " so nearly intersects that of 
the earth, that an actual collision is not impossible, 
and indeed must in all likelihood happen in the lapse 
of some millions of years !" 

A seventh comet belonging to our system, called 
LexelVs Comet, which that astronomer discovered in 
1770, is supposed to have been lost, as it ought to 
have appeared thirteen times, and has not been seen 
since that date. It is thought to have been ren- 
dered invisible in 1779 by the action of Jupiter, but 
in what way astronomers have not been able to de- 
termine. 



36 MORE WOKLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. II. 

The following popular view of the relative sizes 
and distances of the planets which compose the Solar 
system has been given by Sir John Herschel : — 



The Sun, 
Mercury, 
Venus, . 
Earth, . 
Mars, . 
Juno, 
Ceres, 
Vesta, 
Pallas, and 

the other 29 

Asteroids, 
Jupiter, 
Saturn, 
Uranus, 
Neptune, . 

To which we may add ; 

The greatest distance of a Comet, Eight thousand miles. 
Distance of nearest Fixed Star, Fifteen thousand miles. 

The science which presents such objects to our 
contemplation, " constitutes/' to use the language of 
Admiral Smyth ; in concluding his admirable work, 
A Cycle of Celestial Objects, " a sort of scrutiny into 
futurity, and truly elevates the mind above the 
mundane system. We cannot see, without peculiar 
emotion, that the great law of gravitation is decidedly 
extended through the vast heavens, and that all the 
perceptible universe is amenable to the operation of 
time and space, motion and force, in similar relation 



Size. 




Diameter 
of orbit 
in feet. 


Real dist. 
in million 
of miles. 


a Globe two feet in 


diameter, 







a Mustard Seed, . 


. 


164 


36 


a Pea, 


. . 


214 


61 


a larger Pea, 


. 


430 


96 


a large Pin's head, 




654 
1000 




\ Grains of Sand, . 


• • 


to 
1200 


250 


an Orange, . 


Half a mile, 




. 485 


a small Orange, 


One mile and 


a fifth, 


. 899 


a Cherry, 


One mile and 


a half, 


. 1800 


a Plum, 


Two miles and a half, 


. 3000 



CHAP. II. DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 37 

to our own. Thus the ivhole firmament, tvith its 
countless and glorious orbs, luhich, though sustaining 
apparently independent positions, are but individual 
constituents of one Majesty of creation, countenances 
the sagacity of the ancient dogma, that God works 
Br Geometry." 



CHAPTER III. 

THE GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 

In the preceding brief description of the Solar sys- 
tem, we see distinctly the relation which our own 
Earth bears to the other planets, in its position, its 
form, its magnitude, its satellite, and its daily and 
annual motions. But though a comparison of these 
properties of the earth, which constitute what may be 
called its astronomical condition, with the analogous 
properties of the other planets, might entitle us to 
ascribe to them other functions, — the function, for 
example, of supporting inhabitants, which the earth 
only is known to possess, yet our argument will 
derive new strength, and we shall be prepared to 
meet recent objections, by taking into consideration 
the geological structure of the earth, and the proper- 
ties of its atmosphere, and by endeavouring to read 
its past history in the successive steps by which it 
has been prepared as a residence for the human 
family. 

There is no branch of science so closely associated 
with our immediate wants and enjoyments as that of 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EAKTH. 39 

Geology. In our daily walks we tread with heedless 
step upon the apparently uninteresting objects of 
which it treats ; but could we rightly interrogate the 
rounded pebble in our path, it would tell us of the 
convulsions by which it was wrenched from its parent 
rock, and of the floods by which it was abraded and 
placed beneath our feet. In our visits to the pic- 
turesque and the sublime, we come into still closer 
proximity to geological truths. In the precipices 
which defend our rock-girt Isle, and flank our moun- 
tain glens, and in the shapeless fragments at their 
base which the lichen colours, and round which the 
ivy twines, we see the remnants of uplifted and shat- 
tered strata which once peacefully reposed at the 
bottom of the ocean. Nor does the rugged or the 
rounded boulder give a less articulate response from 
its lair of sand or its grave of clay. Floated by ice 
from some alpine summit, or hurried along in torrents 
of mud or of water, it may have traversed a quarter 
of the globe, amid the crash of falling forests and the 
death-shrieks of the animals which they lodged. The 
mountain-range, too, with its catacombs beneath, 
along which the earthquake transmits its terrific 
sounds, reminds us of the mighty powers by which it 
was upheaved, while the lofty peak with its cap of 
ice or its nostrils of fire reveals the tremendous agen- 
cies which have been struggling beneath us. 

But it is not merely among the scenes of external 
nature that forces, now subdued, are presented to our 



40 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. III. 

minds. Our temples and our dwellings are formed 
from the rocks of a primaeval age, — bearing the ripple 
marks of a Pre- Adamite ocean, — ground by the fric- 
tion of the once-travelling boulder, and embosoming 
the relics of ancient life, with the plants which sus- 
tained it. Our houses are ornamented with varie- 
gated limestones the indurated tombs of molluscous 
life, and our apartments heated with the carbon of 
primaeval forests, and lighted with the gaseous ele- 
ment which it confines. The obelisk of granite and 
the monument of bronze which transmit to future 
ages the deeds of the hero and the sage, are equally 
the production of the earth's prolific womb, and from 
the green bed of the ocean have been raised the spot- 
less marble to mould the divine lineaments of beauty, 
and perpetuate the expression of intellectual power. 
From a still greater depth the primaeval rocks have 
yielded a rich tribute to the chaplet of wealth, and the 
processes of art. The diamond and the sapphire and 
the ruby that shine in the imperial diadem, are also 
the valued tools of the artisan ; and the topaz, the 
emerald and the chrysoberyl have been scattered from 
the jewel caskets of our mother earth, to gratify the 
vanity of her children. 

When the geologist begins his survey of the globe, 
he finds its solid covering composed of rocks, and 
beds of all shapes and kinds, lying at every possible 
angle, and occupying every possible position. Here 
the granite rises in lofty peaks, or is scattered in 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 41 

rounded boulders. There the basalt throws its once 
liquid current over beds of sandstone, or sustains 
them upon its flanks. Here the strata, once at the 
bottom of the sea, rest in undisturbed tranquillity — 
the more recent deposits from a tranquil ocean. 
There they bristle up with their rugged margin, dis- 
playing, in serrated outline, the fractured edges of 
ancient and of recent beds. Everywhere indeed, 
what was deep is brought into visible relation with 
what was superficial, — what is old with what is new, 
— what preceded life with what followed it. 

How these rocks came into their present place it is 
the businessof the geologist todetermine, — tocompute 
their relative ages, — to fix the position which they 
originally occupied, — to study the forces by which 
they were upheaved, — and the remains of organic 
life which they entomb. Studies like these possess a 
home interest for reflecting and sympathizing man. 
Life claims kindred with what once lived. It owns 
the same relation between itself and that which is 
yet to breathe ; and if on the tombs of our fathers is 
inscribed the law under which we are individually 
to join them, we read with no less distinctness among 
the cemeteries of primeval death that more general 
enactment under which the races of man, and the 
tributary creation which obeys him, shall take their 
place in the coming catastrophe, and reappear to 
future pilgrims — memorials of the age of genius — 
the cycle of intellectual and immortal generations. 



42 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. HI. 

Thus identified with astronomy, in proclaiming 
truths supposed to be hostile to Scripture, Geology 
has been denounced as the enemy of religion. The 
twin sisters of terrestrial and celestial physics have 
thus been joint-heirs of intolerance and persecution 
— unresisting victims in the crusade which ignorance 
and fanaticism are ever waging against science. 
When great truths are driven to make an appeal to 
reason, knowledge becomes criminal, and philosophers 
martyrs. Truth, however, like all moral powers, can 
neither be checked nor extinguished. When com- 
pressed, it but reacts the more. It crushes where it 
cannot expand, — it burns where it is not allowed to 
shine. Human when originally divulged, it becomes 
divine when finally established. At first, the breath 
of a sage — at last it is the edict of a god. Endowed 
with such vital energy, astronomical truth has cut its 
way through the thick darkness of superstitious 
times, and, cheered by its conquests, geology will find 
the same open path when it has triumphed over the 
less formidable obstacles of a civilized age. 

The Earth, as we have seen, when merely examined 
by the eye, consists of land and water. The land is 
composed of soils of various kinds, and of stones and 
rocks of different characters. It is formed into ex- 
tensive plains, into valleys excavated apparently 
by rivers or water-courses, and into mountain groups 
and mountain ranges, rising to the height of several 
miles above the bed of the ocean. In order to obtain 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 43 

a knowledge of the structure of the earth, geolo- 
gists have examined with the greatest care its rocks, 
its soils, and its accumulations of clay or of gravel, 
wherever they have been laid bare by artificial 
or natural causes, by the operations of the miner, 
or the road engineer, by the cuttings for railways, or 
by the action of rivers or of the sea ; and they have 
thus obtained certain general results which give us 
an approximate idea of the different materials which 
compose what is called the crust of the earth. In 
those portions of its surface, which do not rise into 
mountains, the thickness of the crust thus explored 
does not exceed ten or twelve miles, which is only 
about the 700th part of the earth's diameter, — a 
quantity so small, that if we represent the earth by 
a sphere having the same diameter as the cupola of 
St. Paul's, which is 140 feet, the thickness of the crust 
would be little more than two inches. 

Beneath the crust lies the Nucleus of the earth, 
or its kernel or its frame-work, of the nature and 
composition of which we are entirely ignorant. We 
know only, by comparing the average density of the 
earth, which is about 5\ times that of water, with 
the average density of the rocks near its surface, 
which is about 2J times that of water, that the den- 
sity of the nucleus, if of uniform solidity, must exceed 
5J, and must be much greater if it is hollow or con- 
tains large cavities. Geology does not pretend to 
give us any information respecting the process by 



44 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. III. 

which the nucleus of the earth was formed. Some 
speculative philosophers indeed have presumptuously- 
embarked in such an inquiry; but there is not a 
trace of evidence that the solid nucleus of the globe 
was formed by secondary causes, such as the aggrega- 
tion of attenuated matter diffused through space ; and 
the nebular hypothesis, as it has been called, which we 
shall have occasion to explain in a subsequent chap- 
ter, though maintained in different forms by a few. in- 
dividuals, has been overturned by arguments that have 
never been answered. Sir Isaac Newton, in his four 
celebrated letters to Dr. Bentley, has demonstrated 
that the planets of the solar system could not have been 
thus formed, and put in motion round a central sun. 
But though geologists have not been able to give 
us any intelligence, from actual observation, respect- 
ing the earth's Nucleus, they have examined the rocks 
which rest upon it, and extend upwards to the surface 
of the earth. 

The Primary formations consist of granite rocks, 
trap, syenite, and porphyry. They are composed 
chiefly of the simple minerals, Quartz, Feldspar, 
Mica, and Hornblende or Augite. They are conse- 
quently crystalline and unstratified, and are believed 
to be of igneous origin. 

The next series of rocks are what are called theMeta- 
morphic or altered rocks. They consist of gneiss, mica 
slate, and clay slate, and are more or less stratified. 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 45 

The other primary rocks are Basalt or ancient lava, 
and what are called Trachytic Kocks. 

To all these rocks the name of Azoic, or without 
life, has been given, because they contain no organic 
remains either of plants or animals. 

Above these Primary Eocks lie the fossiliferous 
formations, or those that contain fossils or organic 
remains. 

Professor Ansted has divided them into three 
groups. 

I. The Palceozoic group (or that of ancient life) 
consists of, — 

1. The Lower Silurian, or Protozoic rocks, from 

their containing the first traces of life. 

2. The Upper Silurian rocks. 

3. The Devonian System, or Old Eed Sandstone. 

4. The Carboniferous system, the Lower New 

Red Sandstone, and the Magnesian Lime- 
stone, or Permian system. 

II. The Secondary group consists of, — 

1. The Upper New Bed Sandstone of England, 

or the Triassic formation of Germany. 

2. The Liassic, Oolitic, Wealden (Jurassic) 

formations ; and, 

3. The Cretaceous or chalk formation. 



46 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. III. 

III. The Tertiary formation consists of, — 

1. The older tertiary or Eocene group, viz., 

Bagshot sand and London clay. 

2. The middle tertiary, or Miocene group, viz., 

Eed and Coralline Crag. 

3. The newer tertiary, or Pliocene group, viz., the 

Till of the Clyde Valley and Norwich Crag. 

4. The superficial deposits, or Pleistocene group, 

viz., all diluvial and alluvial deposits of 
gravel and other materials, sometimes stra- 
tified. 

The proportional thicknesses of these different for- 
mations have been estimated by Professor Phillips as 
follows, but the numbers can be regarded only as a 
very rude estimate : — 



Tertiary formation, 


2,000 feet. 


Cretaceous, 


. 1,100 „ 


Oolite and Lias, 


2,500 „ 


New Red Sandstone, . 


2,000 „ 


Carboniferous, 


. 10,000 „ 


Old Red Sandstone, 


9,000 „ 


Primary Rocks, 


. 20,000 „ 



Thickness of the Earth's crust, 46,600 = 9 miles nearly. 

We wish that we could give our readers some dis- 
tinct information respecting the interior condition of 
the Earth, the forces which it embosoms, and the 
manner in which they have upheaved the strata, 
caused volcanoes, and formed those mountain ranges 
and inequalities which diversify its external surface. 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 47 

While the geologist describes the present condition 
of the strata, it is the business of the mechanical 
philosopher to inquire into the causes by which they 
have been thrown into the places which they now 
occupy. This inquiry has been pursued with great 
ability and success by one of our most distinguished 
mathematicians, Mr. William Hopkins of Cambridge. 
In these inquiries the Earth is supposed to have 
been originally in a state of fluidity produced by 
heat, and its crust to have become solid by cooling, 
the solidification extending only to a certain depth, 
and the interior mass remaining in a fluid state. It 
had been often assumed by speculative geologists that 
the central portion of the Earth was fluid, and that 
its solid crust did not exceed ten or twelve miles in 
thickness. On these assumed data they founded dif- 
ferent theories of volcanoes, — certain chemical philo- 
sophers ascribing them to the decomposition of water 
and air, which oxidize the solid materials, and gene- 
rate heat sufficient to melt them, while others believe 
that the solid crust does not exceed twenty or thirty 
miles, and that water descending through crevices to 
the melted mass is converted into steam, which by 
its elastic force produces an external eruption. 

The theory of Mr. Hopkins is founded upon better 
data, and connects the causes of volcanic action with 
those which explain the general phenomena of the 
elevation of the strata. That the interior of the 
Earth is in a fluid state by heat is probable from the 



43 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IIL 

fact, that its temperature increases at the rate of 1° 
of Fahrenheit for every 65 feet in depth, so that at a 
depth of fifty miles the temperature would be twice 
that which would be sufficient to melt iron. At so 
great a depth the pressure of the superincumbent 
matter would be upwards of 200,000 pounds on the 
square inch ; and as it appears from a series of inter- 
esting experiments, conducted by Mr. Hopkins, Mr. 
Fairbairn, and Mr. Joule, that the temperature at 
which many bodies melt is proportional to the pressure 
to which the melted mass is subjected, it follows that 
the Earth's solid crust may be much thicker than 
forty or fifty miles. The inference from these expe- 
rimental results adds great weight to the conclusion 
which Mr. Hopkins had previously deduced from 
theoretical considerations. From the present amount 
of what astronomers call the precession of the equi- 
noctial points, arising from the nutation or oscilla- 
tion of the Earth's axis, produced by the action of 
the Sun and Moon upon the redundant matter at the 
equator, he has shewn that the thickness of the 
solid shell or crust of the Earth cannot be less than 
one-fourth or one-fifth of the Earth's radius, that is, 
than 1000 or 800 miles, and may be much greater. 
This result is quite incompatible with one of the 
volcanic theories which we have mentioned, as the 
fluid mass of the Earth is too remote from its 
surface to be forced out by the pressure of steam 
generated by means of water descending from above. 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 49 

Mr. Hopkins is therefore led to the conclusion 
that the fluid matters which produced external 
volcanoes, exist in internal reservoirs of limited 
extent, forming subterranean lakes, and not a sub- 
terranean ocean. The origin of these masses of fluid 
lava, or melted granite, he ascribes to the greater 
fusibility of the matter of which they consist, and he 
attributes their continuance in a state of fusion to the 
same cause, and to the removal of the consolidating 
influence of pressure, in consequence of their having, 
by expansion, raised into a permanent arch the 
superincumbent solid strata. 

Instead of one continuous internal lake of melted 
matter, a number of lakes may be connected with each 
other by more or less obstructed channels of commu- 
nication. The vapours generated by heat in these 
fluid lakes, and acquiring elastic force, either from 
the rapidity of their production, or from long accu- 
mulation, will elevate the strata above them, some- 
times by a slow and long continued process, and 
sometimes by a more rapid one ; and when fissures 
or openings have been thus produced, the melted 
matter might either be ejected in volcanic eruptions, 
— or diffused through crevices, so as to form veins, — 
or poured out in beds over the surface of the superin- 
cumbent strata. 

The elevations produced on the Earth's surface by 
these elastic forces will depend upon the length, and 
breadth, and depth, as well as upon the general form 

D 



50 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. III. 

of the subterranean lakes of lava. In many cases the 
elevation in one place will be accompanied by a sub- 
sidence of the strata in another. When the cohesion 
of the strata is first overcome, fissures will be pro- 
duced. The strata will in some cases be displaced, 
as in what is called & fault, in others inverted, as they 
are sometimes found to be ; and when the elastic forces 
act horizontally, the strata will be contorted or folded. 

During the sudden dislocations and explosive 
actions which must accompany the upheaval of the 
strata, vibratory motions like waves, excited in the 
solid and fluid masses in the vicinity of the seat of 
upheaval, would be propagated to great distances 
through the solid crust, and produce those earthquakes 
which so often desolate particular regions of the globe. 1 

These views are well illustrated by the cavities 
which I discovered in topaz, quartz, and other minerals 
found in the primitive rocks. These cavities, which 
have every variety of shape, contain solid crystals, 
fluids, vapours, and compressed gases. When heat is 
applied to the specimens which contain them, it 
melts the solid crystals within them, converts the 
fluids into vapour, and either discharges the con- 
tents of the cavity between the fissures along the 

1 Mr. Hopkins's valuable researches will be found in the Philosophical Trans- 
actions for 1839, p. 38, 1840, p. 193, and 1842, p. 43, and in his interesting "Report 
on the Geological Theories of Elevation and Earthquakes," in the Report of the 
British Association for 1847, pp. 33-93. In two recent papers by Mr. Hennesy, 
entitled Researches in Terrestrial Physics, he has arrived at the conclusion that 
the least thickness of the Earth's crust cannot be less than eighteen miles, and its 
greatest thickness not greater than 600 miles. See Philosophical Transactions, 
1851, p. 545. 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EAETH, 5] 

faces of cleavage, or ejects them when the crystal 
explodes and is burst in pieces. By the separation 
of the laminae, and by the agency of heat and other 
causes, electricity is generated and distinctly exhibited 
in the phenomena which accompany the bursting of 
the crystal. These cavities are often very long, and 
of the most extraordinary shapes, and sometimes 
several are connected together by narrow necks or 
channels, through which the solid, fluid, and gaseous 
contents of one cavity are discharged into the next. 1 
In Brazilian topazes I have found cavities containing 
a white powder, which Berzelius analyzed for me, 
and found to consist of silex, alumina, lime, and 
water. This powder is undoubtedly the elements of 
topaz, which, like the materials in the lakes of the 
Earth's crust, have been prevented from solidifying.* 
The formation of lakes of unmelted matter in the 
crust of the Earth is also beautifully illustrated in 
cavities of ice, which contain unfrozen water. 3 It is 
not necessary, therefore, to suppose that the lakes or 
cavities in the crust of the Earth consist of more 
fusible materials than the solid matter which sur- 
rounds them. The materials have been prevented 
from solidifying by the gases which have been simul- 
taneously imprisoned during the induration of the 
surrounding matter. 

i I have given a full account of these phenomena in the Edinburgh Transactions 
vol. x. pp. 1, 407 ; vol. xvi. pp. 7, 11 ; and vol. xx. p. 547. 

2 Cambridge Transactions, 1822. 

3 Edinburgh Transactions, vol. x. p. 426. 



52 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. III. 

Admitting, then, the correctness of Mr. Hopkins's 
opinion that the elevation of mountain chains is 
produced by elastic forces, emanating from large 
subterranean lakes, or chains of lakes of melted lava 
within the solid crust of the Earth, it becomes inter- 
esting to inquire into the direction of those ranges 
of mountains which have been upheaved from the 
same subterranean lake at the same time. This 
inquiry has been pursued with much success by M. 
Elie de Beaumont, who has endeavoured to shew that 
all mountain chains, and consequently the great lines 
of dislocation through which they have been upheaved, 
maybe grouped into parallel systems, and that all these 
lines or chains belonging to any single system were 
produced at the same time by one great convulsion of 
the Earth's crust. More recently, he has arrived 
at the conclusion that the lines of direction which 
characterize each group are not the effect of acci- 
dent, but have such relations to each other, that 
the different groups or systems are symmetrically 
arranged over the Earth's surface, something like the 
lines of a dodecahedron. If we combine this theory 
with Mr. Hopkins's theory of subterranean reservoirs 
or lakes of fluid lava, it will follow that these lakes 
have a symmetrical arrangement within the Earth's 
crust. Until we know the form of the bottom of our 
ocean, it will be difficult to compare these views 
extensively with the elevations on the Earth's surface. 

As all the stratified formations which, with the 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 53 

primary rocks, compose the crust of the earth, have 
ohviously been deposited in succession, geologists 
have endeavoured to form some notion of the time 
occupied in their deposition, or the age of the most 
ancient of them. By studying the fossil remains 
found in the different formations, it has been placed 
beyond a doubt, that great changes have taken place 
during the formation of the crust of the earth. The 
plants and animals which existed in one period are 
not found in another, — new species were at different 
times created, — and frequent convulsions have taken 
place, upheaving the beds of the ocean into continents 
and mountain ranges, causing continents and islands 
to subside, and covering the dry land with the waters 
which were thus necessarily displaced. That the de- 
position of strata of such thickness, and operations of 
such magnitude, required a long period of time for 
their accomplishment, has been willingly conceded to 
the geologist ; but this concession has been founded on 
the adoption of a unit of measure which may or may 
not be correct. It is taken for granted, that many 
of the stratified rocks were deposited at the bottom of 
the sea by the same slow processes which are going 
on in the present day ; and as the thickness of the 
deposits now produced is probably a very small quan- 
tity during a long period of time, it is inferred that 
nine or ten miles of stroma must have taken millions 
of years for their formation. 

We are not disposed to grudge the geologist even 



54 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. III. 

periods so marvellous as this, provided they are con* 
sidered as merely hypothetical ; but when we find, as 
we shall presently do, that speculative writers employ 
these assumed periods as positive truths, for establish- 
ing other theories which we consider erroneous, and 
even dangerous, we are compelled to examine more 
minutely a chronology which has been thus misapplied, 

Incerta incertis non probantur. 

Although we may admit that our seas and con- 
tinents have nearly the same locality, and cover 
nearly the same area as they did at the creation of 
Adam ; and that the hills have not since that time 
changed their form or their height ; nor the beds of 
the ocean become deeper or shallower from the diur- 
nal changes going on around us, — yet this does not 
authorize us to conclude that the world was prepared 
for man by similar causes operating in a similar 
manner. The same physical causes may operate 
quickly or slowly. The dew may fall invisibly on 
the ground, — the gentle shower may descend noise- 
less on the grass, — or the watery vapour may rush 
down in showers and torrents of rain, destroying 
animal and vegetable life. The frozen moisture may 
fall in spiculse or crystals of ice, which are felt only 
by the tender skin upon which they light ; — or it may 
come down in flakes of snow, forming beds many 
feet in thickness ; — or it may be precipitated in de- 
structive hailstones, or in masses of ice which crush 
everything upon which they fall. 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 55 

When the earth was completed as the home of the 
human family, violent changes upon its surface were 
incompatible with the security of life, and the pro- 
gress of civilisation. The powers of the physical 
world were therefore put under restraint, when man 
obtained dominion over the earth ; and after the 
great catastrophe which destroyed almost every liv- 
ing thing, the " bow was set in the clouds/' a cove- 
nant, between God and man, that the elements 
should not again be his destroyer. If the Almighty 
then, since the creation of man, " broke up the foun- 
tains of the deep, and opened the windows of the 
heavens/' and thus, by apparently natural causes, 
covered the whole earth with an ocean that rose 
above the Himalaya and the Andes, — why may He 
not at different periods, or during the whole course 
of the earth's formation, have deposited its strata by 
a rapid precipitation of their elements from the 
waters in which they were dissolved or suspended ? 
Chemical and physical forces of high activity may 
have been the agents in such summary operations, 
and in the beautiful process of the Electrotype, we 
have a striking example of the influence of electricity 
in effecting a rapid precipitation of metals from their 
solutions. The period of the earth's formation would, 
upon this principle, be reduced to little more than 
the united generations of the different orders of 
plants and animals which constitute its organic 
remains. But even the time thus computed, from 



56 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. III. 

the supposed duration of animal life, may be still 
farther shortened. Plants and animals which, in 
our day, require a century for their development, 
may in primitive times have shot up in rank luxuri- 
ance, and been ready, in a few days, or months, or 
years, for the great purpose of exhibiting, by their 
geological distribution, the progressive formation of 
the earth. 

Nor is this a groundless supposition. From the 
age of plants and animals in the present day, we are 
not entitled to infer their age in primitive times. 
Without appealing to the influence of food and cli- 
mate and soil on the growth of animal and vegetable 
bodies, we find the truth of our position in the his- 
tory of our own species. During the first 2000 years 
of the human era, the laws of vital organization were 
entirely different from what they are in the present 
day. From Adam to Abraham the age of man varied 
from 969 to 175 years, and gradually declined to the 
average of threescore and ten ; and in like manner 
the plants and animals of primeval times, when they 
were required, as epochs in the chronology of creation, 
may have had a more luxuriant growth and a shorter 
existence. 

There are other points, in geological theory, which, 
though reasonable inferences from a very limited 
number of facts, have been employed, as if they were 
absolutely true, to support erroneous and dangerous 
theories ; and but for this misapplication of them 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 57 

we should not have called in question opinions in 
themselves reasonable only when viewed as probable 
truths. The geological inference to which we allude 
is, that man did not exist during the period of the 
earth's formation. No work of human skill — no 
fragment of the skeleton — no remains of the integu- 
ments of man have been found among the plants 
and animals which occupy the graves of primaeval 
times. If it be quite certain, or rather sufficiently 
credible, which we think it is, that all the formations 
with fossil remains were deposited before the advent 
of Adam, it is possible that pre-adamite races may 
have inhabited the earth simultaneously with the 
animals which characterize its different formations. 
But though possible, and to a certain extent avail- 
able, as the basis of an argument against a startling 
theory, we do not admit its probability. Man, as 
now constituted, could not have lived amid the storms 
and earthquakes and eruptions of a world in the act 
of formation. His timid nature would have quailed 
under the multifarious convulsions around him. The 
thunder of a boiling and tempest-driven ocean would 
have roused him from his couch, as its waters rushed 
upon him at midnight : Torrents of lava or of mud 
would have chased him from his hearth ; and if he 
escaped the pestilence from animal and vegetable 
death, the vapour of the subterranean alembics would 
have suffocated him in the open air. The house of 
the child of civilisation was not ready for his recep- 



53 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. III. 

tion. The stones that were to build and roof it, had 
not quitted their native beds. The coal that was to 
light and heat it, was either green in the forest, or 
blackening in the storehouse of the deep. The iron 
that was to defend him from external violence, and 
to perform the most important functions in the arts of 
life, lay buried in the ground ; and the rich materials 
of civilisation, the gold, the silver, and the gems, 
even if they were ready, had not been cast within 
his reach, from the hollow of the Creator's hand. 

But if man could have existed amid catastrophes 
so tremendous, and privations so severe, his presence 
was not required, for his intellectual powers could 
have had no suitable employment. Creation was the 
field on which his industry was to be exercised and 
his genius unfolded ; and that Divine reason which 
was to analyze and combine, would have sunk into 
sloth before the elements of matter were let loose from 
their prison-house, and Nature had cast them in her 
mould. But though there was no specific time in 
this primaeval chronology which we could fix as 
appropriate for the appearance of man, yet we now 
perceive that he entered with dignity at its close. 
When the sea was gathered into one place, and the 
dry land appeared, a secure footing was provided for 
our race. When the waters above the firmament 
were separated from the waters below it, and when 
the light which ruled the day, and the light which 
ruled the night, were displayed in the azure sky, man 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 59 

could look upward into the infinite of space, as he 
looked downward into the infinite in time. When 
the living creature after his kind appeared in the fields, 
and the seed-bearing herb covered the earth, human 
genius was enabled to estimate the power, and wis- 
dom, and bounty of its Author, and human labour 
received and accepted its commission, when it was 
declared from on high that seed-time and harvest 
should never cease upon the earth. 

But though we think it probable from these con- 
siderations, that intellectual races could not occupy 
the earth during its formation, yet we know not what 
disclosures might be made had we the power of 
examining the whole of the strata which girdle the 
earth. The dry land upon our globe occupies only 
one-fourth of its whole superficies — all the rest is sea. 
How much of this fourth part have geologists been 
able to examine ? and how small seems to be the 
area of stratification which has been explored ? We 
venture to say not one-hundredth part of the whole, 
and yet upon the results of so partial a survey, there 
has been founded a startling generalization. The in- 
tellectual races, if they did exist, must have lived at a 
distance from the ferocious animals that may have 
occupied the seas and the jungles of the ancient 
world, and consequently their remains could not 
have been found in the ordinary fossiliferous strata. 
Their dwelling-place may have been in one or more 
of the numerous localities of our continents not yet 



60 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. III. 

explored, in steppes and savannahs undisturbed by 
upheavals, or in those immense regions of the earth 
which are now covered by the great oceans of the 
globe ; and till these oceans have quitted their beds, 
or some great convulsions have upheaved and laid 
bare the strata above which the races in question may 
have lived and died, we are not entitled to maintain 
it as a demonstrated truth, upon which we can found 
extravagant speculation, that the ancient earth was 
under the sole dominion of the brutes that perish. 

But without waiting for the result of catastrophes 
like these, the future of geology, even if restricted to 
existing continents and islands, may be pregnant with 
startling discoveries ; and the remains of intellectual 
races may be found beneath as well as above the primi- 
tive Azoic formations of the earth. The astronomers 
of the present day have penetrated far into the 
celestial depths, compared with those of the preced- 
ing age, — descrying in the remotest space glorious 
creations, and establishing mighty laws. Like them, 
may not geologists descend deeper into the abyss 
beneath, and discover in caverns yet unexplored the 
upheaved cemeteries of primordial times. The earth 
has yet to surrender its strongholds of gigantic secrets, 
— and startling revelations are yet to be read on 
sepulchres of stone. It is not from that distant 
bourne where the last ray of starlight trembles on 
the telescopic eye that man is to receive the great 
secret of the world's birth, or of his future destiny. 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 61 

It is from the deep vaults to which primaeval life 
has been consigned that the history of the dawn of 
life is to be composed. Geologists have read that 
chronology backwards, and are decyphering down- 
wards its pale and perishing alphabet. They have 
reached the embryos of animal and vegetable exist- 
ence, the probable terminus of the formation which 
has buried them. But who can tell ivhat sleeps 
beyond ! If we have followed the omnipotent arm into 
the infinity of space, may we not trace it under our 
feet in remoter times, and in deeper cemeteries ? An- 
other creation may lie beneath the Earth's granite 
pavement, — more glorious creatures may be entombed 
there. The mortal coils of beings more lovely, more 
pure, more divine than man, may yet read to us the 
humbling lesson that we have not been the first, and 
may not be the last of the intellectual race. 

In order to compare the condition of the earth with 
that of the moon and the other planets of the Solar 
system, we must know something of its atmosphere, 
of its action in reflecting, and polarizing light, and of 
the phenomena which it will exhibit to other planets 
in its various states, as modified by the aqueous va- 
pour which it contains, whether it exists in minute 
vesicles, or in masses of clouds. The light reflected 
by the atmosphere, when in its purest state, is a rich 
blue, becoming paler and paler as the aqueous vapour 
is increased. When the light of the sun reaches the 
eye, after having been transmitted through great 



62 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. III. 

lengths of atmosphere, it is bright red, passing into 
orange and yellow when the length of its path is 
diminished. Considering, then, the diversity of cli- 
mate in any one hemisphere of the globe, it is hardly 
possible that the earth, as seen from any given point 
in space, could appear free from clouds. When the 
sky is blue over large portions of the tropical regions, 
and smaller portions of the temperate and arctic zones, 
it is elsewhere covered with fleecy clouds, or throwing 
down its superabundant vapours in rain, or hail, or 
snow. The banks of fleecy clouds will reflect a 
brilliant light to the distant eye, while the pure air 
will exhibit the colour of the land, or of the ocean, 
mixed with its own native tint of blue ; and in cer- 
tain positions of the sun, the red beams into which 
his pure rays have been changed by absorption, will 
display themselves in certain parts of the terrestrial 
disc. When the earth, therefore, is reduced by dis- 
tance to the apparent size of Mars and Jupiter, it will 
exhibit a tint composed of all those which we have 
described. 

When the blue light of the sky, and the light re- 
flected from the clouds, are examined by an observer 
on the surface of the earth, it is found to be polarized, 
like the light which is reflected from the surfaces of 
water, ice, and other transparent bodies, whether solid 
or fluid ; and, therefore, a greater or less portion of 
the light reflected from our earth which reaches the 
eye of an observer, placed on another planet, must be 



CHAP. III. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE EARTH. 63 

polarized, and exhibit all the properties of that species 
of light. 1 In like manner, the light reflected from 
the air or from the clouds and water of other planets 
must contain polarized light. We thus obtain a cer- 
tain test of the existence of water, air, and clouds in 
the other planets of the system, and are enabled to 
ascertain the truth of certain speculations respecting 
their condition, which affect the question of a plura- 
lity of worlds. 

1 Sse Johnston's Physical Atlas, Plate V. of Meteorology, 



CHAPTER IV. 

ANALOGY BETWEEN THE EARTH AND THE OTHElt 
PLANETS. 

With the information contained in the preceding 
chapter, respecting the structure of the Earth and its 
atmosphere, we are now in a condition to compare it 
as an inhabited world with the other planets of our 
system, and to ascertain, from the analogies which 
exist between them, to what extent it is probable 
that they are either inhabited, or in a state of pre- 
paration, as the earth once was, for the reception of 
inhabitants. 

In making this comparison, the first point which 
demands our attention is the position which the 
earth occupies in the Solar system. In reference 
to the position of the planets, Jupiter may be 
regarded as the middle planet, and is otherwise 
highly distinguished. Our earth, therefore, is nei- 
ther the middle planet nor the planet nearest 
the sun, nor the planet farthest from that lumi- 
nary. In reference to the light and heat which 
the planets receive from the sun, the Earth has 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 65 

neither the warmest, nor the middle, nor the coldest 
place. With respect to the number of moons or 
satellites, the only uses of which that we know, is to 
give light to the planet, and produce tides in its seas, 
the Earth has the lowest number, all the planets 
exterior to it having a larger number. If we compare 
it with the other planets in reference to their size, 
their form, their density, the length of their year, 
the length of their day, the eccentricity of their orbits, 
we shall find that in all these cases the Earth is not 
in any respect distinguished above the rest. Hence 
we are entitled to conclude that the Earth, as a planet, 
has no pre-eminence in the Solar system to induce 
us to believe that it is the only inhabited world, or 
has any claim to be peculiarly favoured by the 
Creator. 

In order to shew the high probability that the 
other planets are either inhabited, or in a state of 
preparation for the reception of inhabitants, we shall 
now proceed to compare the Earth with the planet 
Jupiter, one of the planets farther from the sun than 
ours, and then with Venus, one of the planets nearer 
the sun, — these planets representing the two groups 
into which the system may be divided. 

The diameter of Jupiter being 87,000 miles, and 
that of the Earth 7926, the relative size or bulk of 
the two planets will be proportional to the cubes of 
these numbers. Hence the size or bulk of Jupiter is 
about 1300 times greater than that of the Earth, and 



66 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

this alone is a proof that it must have been made for 
some grand and useful purpose. Like the Earth it 
is flattened at its poles, and it revolves round its axis 
in 9 h 56 m , which is the length of its day. It enjoys 
different climates, and different seasons in its year ; 
but, what especially demands our attention, it is 
illuminated by four moons, capable of supplying it 
with abundance of light during tne snort aosence of 
tne sun. Owinsr to the small inclination of Jupiter's 
axis to the plane of its orbit, which is only about 
three degrees, there is so little change in the temper- 
ature of its seasons, that it may be said to enjoy a 
perpetual spring. The rotation of the Earth about 
its axis produces currents in its atmosphere parallel 
to the equator, which have received the name of the 
trade winds. On the surface of Jupiter astronomers 
have observed streaks or belts to the number of thirty, 
some of which extend to a great distance from its 
equator. Large spots, which change their form, have 
also been frequently seen upon Jupiter. M. Madler, 
by whom these observations have been chiefly made, 
is of opinion, that owing to the length of Jupiter's 
year, and the small change which takes place in the 
seasons, the masses of clouds in his atmosphere have 
their form, position, and arrangement more perma- 
nent than those in the atmosphere of the Earth, and 
he thinks it probable that the inhabitants in latitudes 
greater than 40° may never see the firmament. 
The satellites of Jupiter afford him perpetual 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 67 

moonlight. They suffer eclipses like our moon when 
they encounter his huge shadow, and they frequently 
eclipse the sun when they pass between him and the 
planet. These satellites afford to their primary planet 
four months of different lengths, one of which is four 
Jovian days, and the others eight, seventeen, and forty 
days respectively. 

With so many striking points of resemblance 
between the Earth and Jupiter, the unprejudiced 
mind cannot resist the conclusion that Jupiter has 
been created like the Earth for the express purpose 
of being the seat of animal and intellectual life. The 
Atheist and the Infidel, the Christian and the Maho- 
metan, — men of all creeds and nations and tongues, 
— the philosopher and unlettered peasant, have all 
rejoiced in this universal truth ; and we do not 
believe that any individual, who confides in the facts 
of astronomy, can seriously reject it If such a per- 
son exists, we would gravely ask him for what purpose 
could so gigantic a world have been framed. Why 
does the sun give it days and nights and years ? 
Why do its moons throw their silver light upon its con- 
tinents and its seas ? Why do its equatorial breezes 
blow perpetually over its plains ? unless to supply 
the wants, and administer to the happiness of living 
beings. 

In studying this subject, persons who have only a 
superficial knowledge of astronomy, though firmly 
believing in a plurality of worlds, have felt the force 



68 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

of certain objections, or rather difficulties, which 
naturally present themselves to the inquirer. The 
distance of Jupiter from the sun is so great that the 
light and heat which he receives from that luminary 
is supposed to be incapable of sustaining the same 
animal and vegetable life which exists on the Earth. 
If we consider the heat upon any planet as arising 
solely from the direct rays of the sun, the cold upon 
Jupiter must be very intense, and water could not 
exist upon its surface in a fluid state. Its rivers and 
its seas must be tracks and fields of ice. But the 
temperature of a planet depends upon other causes, 
— upon the condition of its atmosphere, and upon 
the internal heat of its mass. The temperature of 
our own globe decreases as we rise in the atmosphere, 
and approach the sun, and it increases as we de- 
scend into the bowels of the Earth and go farther 
from the sun. In the first of these cases, the increase 
of heat as we approach the surface of the Earth from 
a great height in a balloon, or from the summit of a 
lofty mountain, is produced by its atmosphere ; and 
in Jupiter the atmosphere may be so formed as to 
compensate to a certain extent the diminution in the 
direct heat of the sun arising from the great distance 
of the planet. In the second case, the internal heat 
of Jupiter may be such as to keep its rivers and seas 
in a fluid state, and maintain a temperature suffici- 
ently genial to sustain the same animal and vegetable 
life which exists upon our own globe. 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 69 

These arrangements, however, if they are required, 
and have been adopted, cannot contribute to increase 
the feeble light which Jupiter receives from the sun; 
but in so far as the purposes of vision are concerned, 
an enlargement of the pupil of the eye, and an in- 
creased sensibility of the retina, would be amply 
sufficient to make the sun's light as brilliant as it 
is to us. The feeble light reflected from the moons 
of Jupiter would then be equal to that which we 
derive from our own, even if we do not adopt the 
hypothesis, which we shall afterwards have occasion 
to mention, that a brilliant phosphorescent light 
may be excited in the satellites by the action of the 
solar rays. 

Another difficulty has presented itself, though very 
unnecessarily, in reference to the shortness of the day 
in Jupiter. A day of ten hours has been supposed 
insufficient to afford that period of rest which is 
requisite for the renewal of our physical functions 
when exhausted with the labours of the day. This 
objection, however, has no force. Five hours of rest 
is surely sufficient for five hours of labour; and when 
the inhabitants of the temperate zone of our own 
globe reside, as many of them have done, for years 
in the arctic regions, where the length of the days 
and nights are so unusual, they have been able to 
perform their functions as well as in their native 
climates. 

A difficulty, however, of a more serious kind is 



70 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

presented by the great force of gravity upon so gi- 
gantic a planet as Jupiter. The stems of plants, the 
materials of buildings, the human body itself, would, 
it is imagined, be crushed by their own enormous 
weight. This apparently formidable objection will 
be removed by an accurate calculation of the force of 
gravity upon Jupiter, or of the relative weight of 
bodies on its surface. The mass of Jupiter is 1300 
times greater than that of the Earth, so that if both 
planets consisted of the same kind of matter, a man 
weighing 150 pounds on the surface of the Earth 
would weigh 150 x 1300, or 195,000 pounds at a 
distance from Jupiter's centre equal to the Earth's 
radius. But as Jupiter s radius is eleven times greater 
than that of the Earth, the weight of bodies on his 
surface will be diminished in the ratio of the square 
of his radius, that is, in the ratio of 11 x 11, or 121 
to 1. Consequently, if we divide 195,000 pounds by 
121, we shall have 1611 pounds as the weight of a 
man of 150 pounds on the surface of Jupiter, that 
is about eleven times his weight on the Earth. But 
the matter of Jupiter is much lighter than the mat- 
ter of our Earth, in the ratio of 24 to 100, the num- 
bers which represent the densities of the two planets, 
so that if we diminish 1611 pounds in the ratio of 24 
to 100, or divide it by 4.17, we shall have 393 pounds 
as the weight of a man on Jupiter, who weighs on 
the Earth only 150 pounds, that is, only about 2^ 
times his weight — a difference which actually exists 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 71 

between many individuals on our own planet. A 
man, therefore, constituted like ourselves, could exist 
without inconvenience upon Jupiter ; and plants, and 
trees, and buildings, such as occur on our own Earth, 
could grow and stand secure in so far as the force of 
gravity is concerned. 1 

In removing difficulties, and answering objections 
such as these, we have conceded too much to the 
limited conceptions of the persons who have felt the 
one and urged the other. To assume that the in- 
habitants of the planets must necessarily be either 
men or anything resembling them, is to entertain a 
low opinion of that infinite skill which has produced 
such a variety in the form and structure and functions 
of vegetable and animal life. In the numerous races 
of man which occupy our globe, there is not the same 
variety which is exhibited in the brutes that perish. 
Although the noble Anglo-Saxon stands in striking 
contrast with the Negro, and the lofty Patagonian 
with the diminutive Esquimaux, yet in their general 
form and structure, and in their physical and mental 
powers, they are essentially the same. But when we 
look into the world of instinct, and survey the in- 
finitely varied forms which people the earth, the 
ocean, and the air ; — when we range with the natu- 
ralist's eye from the elephant to the worm — from the 
leviathan to the infusoria — and from the eagle to the 
humming bird, what beauty of form — what diversity 

• i See Chap. XVL 



72 MOKE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IY. 

of function — what variety of purpose is exhibited to 
our view ! In all these forms of being, reason might 
have been given in place of instinct, and animals the 
most hostile to man, and the most alien to his habits, 
might have been his friend and his auxiliary, in place 
of his enemy and his prey. If we carry our scrutiny 
deeper into nature, and survey the infinity of regions 
of life which the microscope discloses, and if we con- 
sider what other breathing worlds lie far beyond even 
its reach, we may then comprehend the variety of 
intellectual life with which our own planets and those 
of other systems may be peopled. Is it necessary 
that an immortal soul should be united to a skeleton 
of bone, or imprisoned in a cage of cartilage and of 
skin ? Must it see with two eyes, and hear with two 
ears, and touch with ten fingers, and rest on a duality 
of limbs ? May it not reside in a Polyphemus with 
one eyeball, or in an Argus with a hundred ? May 
it not govern in the giant forms of the Titans, and 
direct the hundred hands of Briareus ? But setting 
aside the ungainly creations of mythology, how many 
probable forms are there of beauty, and activity, and 
strength, which even the painter, the sculptor, and 
the poet could assign to the physical casket in which 
the diamond spirit may be enclosed ; how many pos- 
sible forms are there, beyond their invention, which 
eye hath not seen, nor the heart of man conceived ? 

But no less varied may be the functions which the 
citizens of the spheres have to discharge, — no less 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 73 

diversified their modes of life, — and no less singular 
the localities in which they dwell. If this little 
world demands such duties from its occupants, and 
yields such varied pleasures in their discharge : — If 
the obligations of power, of wealth, of talent, and of 
charity to humanize our race, to unite them in one 
brotherhood of sympathy and love, and unfold to 
them the wonderful provisions for their benefit which 
have been made in the structure and preparation of 
their planetary home : If duties, so varied and nu- 
merous, have required thousands of years to ripen 
their fruit of gold, what inconceivable and countless 
functions may we not assign to that plurality of in- 
tellectual communities, which have been settled, or 
are about to settle in the celestial spheres ? What 
deeds of heroism, moral, and perchance physical ! 
What enterprises of philanthropy, — what achieve- 
ments of genius may we not expect in empires so 
extensive, and in worlds so grand ! 

On a planet more magnificent than ours, may there 
not be a type of reason of which the intellect of 
Newton is the lowest degree ? May there not be 
telescopes more penetrating, and microscopes more 
powerful than ours ? — processes of induction more 
subtle, of analysis more searching, and of combina- 
tion more profound ? May not the problem of three 
bodies be solved there, — the enigma of the lumini- 
ferous ether unriddled, — and the transcendentalisms 
of mind embalmed in the definitions and axioms and 



74 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

theorems of geometry ? Chemistry may there have 
new elements, new gases, new acids, new alkalies, 
new earths and new metals ; — geology, new rocks, 
new classes of cataclysms, and new periods of change ; 
— and zoology, mineralogy, and botany, new orders 
and species, new forms of life, and new types of or- 
ganization,— all demanding higher powers of reason, 
and leading to a warmer appreciation, and a higher 
knowledge of the ways and works of God. But 
whatever be the intellectual occupation of the in- 
habitants of the planets, who can doubt that it will 
be one of their objects to study and develop the ma- 
terial laws which are in operation around them, above 
them, beneath them, and beyond them in the skies ? 
Under what suns, in what climates, and in what 
habitations, these planetary races are to live and 
move, may be conjectured from the place which they 
occupy in the system, and from the phenomena which 
they exhibit when examined by the telescope. It 
may not be in cities exposed to the extremes of heat 
and cold, — nor in houses made with hands, — nor in the 
busy market-place, — nor in the noisy Forum, — nor in 
the solemn temple, — nor in the ark which rests upon 
the deep, that these feats of power and reason are to 
be performed. The being of another mould may 
have his home in subterranean cities warmed by 
central fires, — or in crystal caves cooled by ocean 
tides, — or he may float with the Nereids upon the 
deep, or mount upon wings as eagles, or rise upon 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 75 

the pinions of the dove, that he may flee away and 
be at rest. Amid our meagre conceptions of the con- 
ditions of planetary life, we may gather some ideas 
from the existences around us. In the cities and 
dwellings and occupations of the world of instinct 
in our own planet, rude though they be, we may trace 
the lineaments of the cities and dwellings and occu- 
pations of reason in another. 

In continuing the argument for a plurality of 
worlds, it would be a waste of time to enter into the 
same details respecting the analogy between the 
Earth and the other four superior planets of the sys- 
tem, as we have done with respect to Jupiter. In 
some, the analogies are more close than in others, 
but in all they are sufficiently numerous and power- 
ful to command the assent of an unprejudiced mind. 

In the three planets, superior to Jupiter, namely, 
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, the direct light and 
heat of the sun is greatly less than that which falls 
upon Jupiter, being inversely proportional to the 
squares of their distances from the centre of their 
radiations ; but we have already seen, that in so far 
as vision and local temperature are concerned, the 
light of the sun may in these planets be as brilliant, 
and the temperature of the seasons as genial as they 
are upon our own Earth. An increased degree of 
sensibility in the nervous membrane of the eye, with 
an enlarged pupil, may give to light, geometrically 
feeble, a sufficient energy of sensation, while a dif- 



76 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

ferent condition of their atmospheres, and a more 
ardent focus of internal heat, may maintain an agree- 
able temperature upon their surface. 

The planet Saturn, encompassed with the extra- 
ordinary appendage of a ring, fitted to illuminate 
extensive portions of his surface, and encircled with 
eight moons lighting him in the sun's absence, and 
revolving round him in months varying from the 
length of one day up to eighty days, has always been 
an object of peculiar interest to the astronomer, and 
of wonder to the ordinary student of nature. The 
plane of the ring, which we have described in the 
preceding chapter, is parallel to the equator, and has 
inequalities like mountains on its surface. His eight 
satellites are placed at distances varying from 98,000 
miles, the distance of the nearest from the planet, to 
nearly two millions of miles, the distance of the most 
remote ; and as the first five are nearer Saturn than 
our moon is to the Earth, they will exhibit larger 
discs of light to the planet. Astronomers have not 
yet been able to measure their diameters, but if they 
are greatly larger than our moon, which is very pro- 
bable, the firmament must exhibit a brilliant vault 
of azure, bespangled with large discs of light, with a 
variety of phases, and spanned with the brilliant 
arches of the planet's ring. As the nearest of these 
moons, which is called Mimas, performs its revolu- 
tion in twenty-two hours and a half, its phases must 
change from the slenderest crescent to the state of 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 77 

half raoon in the course of jive hours, and as its disc 
(if it has the same real size as our moon) must appear 
two and a half times larger, the boundary between 
the light and dark hemisphere will be seen actually 
advancing upon the body of the satellite. For the 
same reason, the motion of this satellite among the 
stars will be more perceptible than the movement 
of our stars and planets from their rising to their 
setting, produced by the diurnal motion of the 
Earth. 1 

With respect to the force of gravity upon the sur- 
face of Saturn, the analogy between it and the Earth 
is stronger than in the case of Jupiter. The density of 
Saturn is to that of the Earth as 24 to 100, or a little 
more than four times less, so that since the Earth is 
5J times denser than water, the density of Saturn 
will be lfths that of water. In like manner it may 
be shewn that Uranus and Neptune have nearly the 
same density as water, and if we make a similar esti- 
mate of the force of gravity upon the three superior 

1 The appearance of the system of rings from the surface of Saturn, and of the 
phenomena which they produce in eclipsing occasionally and temporarily the 
sun, the eight satellites, and other celestial bodies, was for the first time accurately 
described by Dr. Lardner in a memoir published in the twenty-second volume of 
the Transactions of the Astronomical Society for 1853. Dr. Lardner has there 
demonstrated " that the infinite skill of the great Architect of the Universe bas not 
permitted that this stupendous annular appendage, the uses of which still remain 
undiscovered, should be the cause of such darkness and desolation to the inhabi- 
tants of the planet, and such an aggravation of the rigours of their fifteen years' 
winter, as it has been inferred to be from the reasonings of the eminent astronomers 
already named, (Bode, Herschel, and Madler,) as well as many others, who have 
either adopted their conclusions, or arrived at like inferences by other arguments." 
w In short," Dr. Lardner adds, " the ring has no such character as would deprive 
the planet of any essential condition of habitability." — Museum of Science and Art, 
vol. i. p, 59. 



78 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

planets, we shall find that in Saturn the force of 
gravity is a little greater than in the Earth, and in 
Uranus and Neptune a little less, so that human 
beings, like ourselves, would experience no inconve- 
nience from the greater or less force of gravity on 
these planets, and plants and trees, and architectural 
structures, of the same character with our own, would 
have the same strength and permanence. 

In consequence of the rotation of Saturn upon his 
axis in about 10^ hours, belts and streaks are seen 
upon his surface, produced, doubtless, as those in 
Jupiter, by equatorial currents like our trade winds. 
Variable masses of cloud diversify his surface, some- 
times changing their place, and sometimes continu- 
ing so long in one position, that they reappear at one 
side of the planet's disc in the same place which they 
occupied five hours before when they disappeared on 
the other side of it. 

In the two remote planets, Uranus and Neptune, 
the principal point of analogy with our Earth is, that 
they are lighted with moons, — Uranus with six, and 
Neptune with one or perhaps two, though we have 
no doubt that, like the other distant planets, he will 
be found to possess a greater number. The power 
of our best telescopes has not enabled astronomers to 
discover belts and clouds upon these two planets, and 
thus determine their daily motion. The oblate form 
of their discs, too, remains to be discovered ; but not- 
withstanding the absence of these points of analogy, 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 79 

the very existence of such large globes of matter 
revolving round the sun, and lighted up with moons, 
cannot fail to satisfy the unprejudiced and inquiring 
mind that they must have been created for some 
grand purpose worthy of their Maker. In the present 
state of our knowledge, it is impossible to conceive 
any other purpose than that of being the residence of 
animal and intellectual life. 

There is one consideration in reference to the two 
remote planets, Uranus and Neptune, which some of 
our readers may regard as adding to the probability 
of their being worlds like our own. Some writers, or 
rather one, for we know of only one, have asserted 
that "however destitute planets, moons, and rings 
may be of inhabitants, they are at least vast scenes 
of God's presence, and of the activity with which He 
carries into effect everywhere the laws of nature, and 
that the glory of creation arises from its being not 
only the product, but the constant field of God's 
activity and thought, wisdom and power/' 1 We 
shall not venture to ascertain how much more of 
God's glory is seen in the mere material structure of 
Saturn and his ring, and of Jupiter and his satellites, 
than it is in the minutest insect that lives but for an 
hour ; nor shall we compare gigantic masses of self- 
luminous or opaque illuminated matter with the 
smaller organisms which are daily presented to us. 
We shall admit that the vulgar eye even is delighted 

1 Of the Plurality of Worlds : an Essay, p. 254. 



80 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

with the sight of planets made gorgeous by the tele- 
scope, — that astronomers are entranced by the study 
of their movements and their perturbations, and that 
the useful art of navigation may derive some advan- 
tage from the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites. The 
poet, too, may rejoice in "the soft and tender beauty 
of the moon," and in the inspirations of the morning 
and the evening star. But where is the grandeur, — 
where the utility, — where the beauty, — where the 
poetry of the two almost invisible stars which usurp 
the celestial names of Uranus and Neptune, and 
which have been seen by none but a very few even of 
the cultivators of astronomy ? The grand discoveries 
of Kepler, Newton, and Laplace, were made before 
these planets were known. They have, therefore, 
been of no use in establishing the physical laws of 
the universe. The seaman in the trackless ocean 
never seeks their guidance : to him they have not 
even the value of the polar star. They contribute 
nothing to the arts of terrestrial life : they neither 
light the traveller on his journey, nor mark by their 
feeble ray the happy hours which are consecrated to 
friendship and to love. They must, therefore, have 
been created for other and nobler ends, — to be the 
abodes of life and intelligence — the colossal temples 
where their Creator is recognised and worshipped, — 
the remotest watch-towers of our system from which 
His works may be better studied, and His distant 
glories more readily descried. 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 81 

From Jupiter and the planets beyond him, we 
now proceed to the examination of Mars, Venus, and 
Mercury, and here we shall find analogies more or 
less numerous and striking with those of our own 
Earth. In this group of planets no moon or satellite 
has yet been discovered, and it is probable that none 
exists. An atmosphere of great height and of a pecu- 
liar constitution reflecting on the planet the light of 
the sun many hours after he has set, might in all of 
them supply the place of a moon. The density of 
Mars and Venus is very nearly the same as that of 
the Earth, the density of the former being 0*95, and 
that of the latter 0*92, while the density of Mercury 
is a little greater, amounting to 1.12. As the dia- 
meter of Venus is nearly equal to that of the Earth, 
the force of gravity upon its surface will be almost 
exactly the same ; and in Mars and Mercury, whose 
diameters are only about one half that of the Earth, 
the weight of bodies will be about one half of what 
they would be if placed upon our own globe. 

In Mars, Venus, and Mercury, the length of the 
day is almost exactly twenty-four hours, the same as 
that of the Earth, 1 and in many other points the 
analogy with our globe is very striking. Continents 
and oceans, and green savannahs, have been ob- 
served upon Mars, and the snow of his polar regions 

1 The mean of the length of the day in these four planets, is within less than a 
minute of twenty-four hours. The days of Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars, 
are respectively 24 h 5 m ; 23 h 21 m ; 24 h 7 m , and 24 h 7 m ; the mean of which is 24 h Q«* 
45« 

F 



82 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

has been seen to disappear with the heat of sum- 
mer. In Venus and Mercury their surface is varie- 
gated with mountain chains of great elevation, and 
but for the brilliancy of their discs, and the clouds 
which envelop them, the telescope would have 
discovered to us more minute details upon their 
surface. 

The planets of this inferior group are surrounded 
with atmospheres like our Earth. We actually see 
the clouds floating in the atmosphere of Mars, and 
there is the appearance of land and water on his disc. 
Venus and Mercury are surrounded with the same 
medium essential to life, and in Venus astronomers 
have even observed the morning and the evening 
twilight. These atmospheres are doubtless the 
means of tempering the great heat which Venus 
and Mercury receive from the sun ; and the same 
purpose may be answered by the absence of that 
internal heat which exists in the Earth, and which 
may be used to increase the temperature of the 
remoter planets. The intense light which Venus 
and Mercury receive from the sun may be adduced 
as an objection to the existence, upon these planets, 
of inhabitants like ourselves ; but this objection is 
at once removed by the consideration that this in- 
tense light may be completely moderated either by a 
very small pupil, or by a diminished sensibility of 
the retina, or by a combination of both. 

Such are the numerous analogies which subsist 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 83 

between our Earth and Mars, Venus and Mercury. 
They afford, as a popular writer observes, " the 
highest degree of probability, not to say moral cer- 
tainty, to the conclusion, that these three planets 
which, with the Earth, revolve nearest to the Sun, 
are, like the Earth, appropriated by the Omnipotent 
Creator and Euler of the Universe to races very 
closely resembling, if not absolutely identical with 
those with* which the Earth is peopled/' 1 After 
concluding his examination of the four exterior 
planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, the 
same able and candid writer closes his elaborate 
chapter in these words : — 

" We have thus presented the reader with a brief 
and rapid sketch of the circumstances attending the 
two chief groups of globes which compose the Solar 
system, and have explained the discoveries and strik- 
ing analogies, which taken together amount to a 
demonstration, that in the economy of the material 
universe these globes must subserve the same pur- 
poses as the Earth, and must be the divellings of 
tribes of organized creatures having a corresponding 
analogy to those which inhabit the Earth. 

" The differences of organization and character 
which would be suggested as probable or necessary 
by the different distances of the several planets from 
the common source of light and heat, and the con- 
sequent differences of intensity of these physical 

1 Dr. Lardner'e Museum of Science and Art, voL i. p. i!3. 



84 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

agencies upon them, by the different weights of 
bodies on their surfaces, owing to the different inten- 
sities of their attractions on such bodies, by the 
different intervals which mark the alternation of light 
and darkness, are not more than are seen to prevail 
among the organized tribes, animal and vegetable, 
which inhabit different regions of the earth. The 
animals and plants of the tropical zones differ in 
general from those of the temperate and the polar 
zones, and even in the same zone we find different 
tribes of organized creatures flourish at different ele- 
vations above the level of the sea. There is nothing 
more wonderful than this in the varieties of organi- 
zation suggested by the various physical conditions 
by which the planets are affected." 1 

To this opinion of a mathematician and a natural 
philosopher, who has studied more than any preced- 
ing writer the analogies between the Earth and the 
other planets, we may add that of the most dis- 
tinguished naturalist and anatomist of the present 
day, who speaks in an authoritative tone as repre- 
senting the cultivators of that department of science 
which he has enriched with such important discoveries. 
" We have been accustomed," says Professor Owen, 2 
" to regard the vertebrate animals as being charac- 
terized by the limitation of their limbs to two pairs, 
and it is true that no more diverging appendages are 



1 Dr. Lardner's Museum of Sctence and Art, vol. i. p. 62. 

2 On the Nature of Limbs. London, 1849, pp. 83, 84, 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 85 

developed for station, locomotion, and manipulation. 
But the rudiments of many more pairs are present 
in many species. And though they may never be 
developed as such in this planet, it is quite conceiv- 
able that certain of them may be so developed, if the 
vertebrate type should be that on which any of the 
inhabitants of other planets of our system are orga- 
nized. 

" The conceivable modifications of the vertebrate 
archetype. are very far from being exhausted by any 
of the forms that now inhabit the Earth, or that are 
known to have existed here at any period. 

" The naturalist and anatomist, in digesting the 
knowledge which the astronomer has been able to 
furnish regarding the planets and the mechanism of 
the satellites for illuminating the night season of the 
distant orbs that revolve round one common sun, can 
hardly avoid speculating on the organic mechanism 
that may exist to profit by such sources of light, and 
which must exist if the only conceivable purpose of 
these beneficent arrangements is to be fulfilled. But the 
laws of light, as of gravitation, being the same in Ju- 
piter as here, the eyes of such creatures as may disport 
in the soft reflected beams of its moons will probably 
be organized on the same dioptric principles as those 
of the animals of a like grade of organization on this 
earth. And the inference as to the possibility of the 
vertebrate type being the basis of the organization oi 
some of the inhabitants of other planets, will not 



86 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

appear so hazardous when it is remembered that the 
orbits or protective cavities of the eyes of the verte- 
brata of this planet are constructed of modified 
vertebrae. Our thoughts are free to soar as far as any 
legitimate analogy may seem to guide them rightly 
on the boundless ocean of unknown truth. And if 
censure be merited for here indulging, even for a 
moment, in pure speculation, it may perhaps be dis- 
armed by the reflection that the discovery of the 
vertebrate archetype could not fail to suggest to the 
anatomist many possible modifications of it beyond 
those that we know to have been realized in this little 
orb of ours!' 

These important and original views arose from the 
recognition of what he thought rudiments of limbs 
which had never been developed, in so far as yet 
known, to functional importance in any terrene ver- 
tebrate, and we believe that no naturalist or anato- 
mist, except himself, had arrived at any distinct 
notion of the common pattern of the vertebrate 
skeleton, especially in regard to the nature of limbs, 
leading to a recognition of the rudiments of limbs in 
the thorax of fishes, crocodiles, and birds. 

But valuable as this discovery must be regarded 
by the philosophical naturalist, its application to the 
possible forms of life in other planets possesses a more 
general interest, and forms an entirely new, and we 
think, irresistible argument for a plurality of worlds. 

"The insect forms," says Professor Owen, in an 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 87 

unpublished memorandum, " with which the Creator 
has associated instincts that simulate closely our 
boasted reason are so inconceivably different from our 
own or any vertebrate organization, as to lead any 
one conscious of the extremely narrow field to which 
his observation of life-phenomena is here restricted, 
to deem it highly probable that the forms of organi- 
zation endowed with physical powers akin to our own 
in other planets, may nevertheless be very different 
from ours, and be as admirably adapted to the media 
of existence in those planets. As a vast variety of 
organizations do exist in one planet to manifest the 
riches of creative resources, and amongst that variety 
a species capable of conceiving how very far these 
resources are from having been exhausted. Since, 
moreover, it has been given to that species, in God's 
good time, to know the subordinate character of the 
globe it inhabits amongst the stars of heaven, a con- 
ception of the probability of analogous globes being 
analogous seats of equal variety of creative adaptations 
is inevitable. The grounds of belief vary with the 
probability of a proposition : If nothing better than 
analogy can be had, — on analogy will belief be based." 
In referring to the doctrine of Plato respecting 
ideal archetypes, as thus revived by Professor Owen, 
the author of the Essay of a Plurality of worlds pays 
the following just compliment to this eminent ana- 
tomist : — " If a mere metaphysician/' says he, " were 
to attempt to revive this mode of expressing the 



88 MOKE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

doctrine, probably his speculations would be dis- 
regarded, or treated as a pedantic resuscitation of 
obsolete Platonic dreams, but the adoption of such 
language must needs be received in a very different 
manner when it proceeds from a great discoverer in 
the field of natural knowledge : when it is, as it were, 
forced upon Mm as the obvious and appropriate 
expression of the result of the most profound and 
comprehensive researches into the frame of the whole 
animal creation. The recent works of Mr. Owen, 
and especially one work On the Nature of 'Limbs ', are 
full of the most energetic and striking passages, in- 
culcating the doctrine which we have been endea- 
vouring to maintain. We may take the liberty of 
enriching our pages with one passage bearing upon 
the present part of the subject. 

" ' If the world were made by an antecedent mind 
or understanding, that is, by a Deity, then there 
must needs be an Idea and Exemplar of the whole 
world before it was made, and consequently, actual 
knowledge both in the order of Time and Nature, 
before Things. But conceiving of knowledge as it 
was got by their own finite minds, and ignorant of 
any evidence of an ideal archetype for the world or 
any part of it, they (the Democritic philosophers 
who denied a Divine Creative Mind) affirmed that 
there was none, and concluded that there could 
be no knowledge or mind before the world was, as 
its cause/ " 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 89 

Before we read this passage in Professor Owen's 
work On Limbs, from which our essayist does not 
quote it, 1 for reasons which may be conjectured, we 
never doubted that the accomplished professor did 
not believe in a plurality of worlds. Upon turning, 
however, to the volume itself, we found the beautiful 
passage which we have quoted in direct support of 
this great doctrine, which we may truly say, in the 
words of the essayist, " proceeds from a great dis- 
coverer in the field of natural Jenoiuledge, and ivhich 
ivas forced upon him (Professor Owen) as the obvi- 
ous and appropriate expression of the result of the 
most profound and comprehensive researches into 
the frame of the ivhole animal creation." 

But not only has the essayist dealt thus unfairly 
with his readers, he has treated Professor Owen in 
the same manner, by ascribing to him the first half 
of the preceding quotation, which the Professor quotes 
from " the learned Cudworth" in his own words, and 
which Cudworth gives as the opinion of " the Demo- 
critic Atheists !" 

The observations of Professor Owen on ideal arche- 
types throw a real light on the subject of a plurality 
of worlds. If there be an ideal exemplar or arche- 
type of vertebrate animals, and if the conceivable 
modifications of that archetype are far from being 
exhausted either in the animal forms which now 

1 The quotation may be from Professor Owen's other works referred to by the 
essayist, — his work, for example, On the Archetype of the Verttbrate Skeleton. 



90 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IV. 

inhabit the earth, or in the fossil remains of its 
primeval tenants, it is no idle speculation to suppose 
that the modifications may be developed in the ver- 
tebrate animals of other planets. We have a reason, 
therefore, besides those of analogy and congruity, to 
believe in the existence of beings both intellectual 
and animal in the other regions of space. And as 
there must be an exemplar of intellectual as well as 
of physical man, may we not equally expect, in the 
upper spheres, modifications of mind which have not- 
been exhibited in the terrestrial races ? If the rudi- 
mentary wing of man be expanded into the soaring 
pinion of the eagle, may not those mental powers 
which are only rudimentary here, and which fail in 
grasping the infinite and the eternal, expand them- 
selves in another planet, and approximate to that 
divine intelligence of which they are here but a feeble 
emanation ? 

Under the influence of such views, may we not 
conceive also the archetype of a world, the rudiments 
of which, imperfectly developed in our own globe, 
may have all its modifications exhausted in the plane- 
tary and sidereal domains ? The uniformity in the 
general design of the bodies of animals, which Sir 
Isaac Newton compares with that " wonderful uni- 
formity of the planetary system, which is the effect 
of choice," being thus compatible with an almost 
infinite diversity of parts, there may be the same 
numerous deviations from the archetype in the plane 



CHAP. IV. THE EARTH AND THE OTHER PLANETS. 91 

taiy world. "It may be allowed/' says Sir Isaac New- 
ton, " that God is able to create particles of matter 
of several sizes and figures, and in several proportions 
to space, and perhaps of different densities and forces, 
and thereby to vary the laws of Nature, and make 
ivorlds of several sorts in several parts of the uni- 
verse!' 1 If all the structures of created things are 

" Parts and proportions of a wondrous whole," 

that icTiole is the sidereal universe, and those parts 
and proportions are the inhabited planets, satellites^ 
and suns of which it is composed. 

i Optics, edit. 1721, pp. 378, 379. 



CHAPTEK V. 

THE SUN, MOON, AND SATELLITES. 

So strong has been the belief that the Sun cannot 
be a habitable world, that a scientific gentleman 1 
was pronounced by his medical attendant to be 
insane, because he had sent a paper to the Eoyal 
Society, in which he maintained " that the light of 
the sun proceeds from a dense and universal aurora 
which may afford ample light to the inhabitants of 
the surface beneath, and yet be at such a distance 
aloft, as not to annoy them f — that " vegetation may 
obtain there as well as with us," — that a there may 
be water and dry land there, hills and dales, rain, 
and fair weather," — and that " as the light and the 
seasons must be eternal," the " sun may easily be 
conceived to be by far the most blissful habitation of 
the whole system." About half a century before 



1 This gentleman was a Dr. Elliott, who was tried at the Old Bailey for shooting 
Miss Boydell. His medical attendant was Dr. Simmons, through whom he sect 
the paper for the Royal Society, and who referred the Court to the passage we 
have given as a proof of insanity. See Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, Art. Astronomy, 
vol. ii. p. 616, or Gentleman's Magazine for 1787, p. 636. 



CHAP. V. THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. 93 

this opinion was given by Dr. Elliott, a pious and 
distinguished individual, Lord President Forbes of 
Culloden, stated it as his opinion, that if the planets 
were inhabited, " the inhabitants must be of a tex- 
ture very different from those of the earth/' and that 
" we cannot deem it impossible that beings may have 
been made, fit to reside, to act, and to think in the 
very centre, as well as on the surface of the sun" 1 
And in less than ten years after this apparently 
extravagant notion had been considered a proof of 
insanity, it was maintained by Sir William Herschel 
as a rational and probable opinion, which might be 
deduced from his own observations on the structure 
of the sun. 

It is by no means necessary that those who believe 
in a plurality of worlds within the limits of our own 
system, should adopt the opinion that the Sun which 
lights it, and the many satellites which light the 
primary planets, should be inhabited worlds. They 
form an entirely different class of bodies, and the 
arguments employed to shew that they may be in- 
habited are of a different nature from those analogies 
which so strongly apply to the primary planets. The 
Sun has a great function to perform in controlling 
the movements of the whole system. It is the main- 
spring of the great planetary chronometers, without 
which they would stop, and rush into destructive 

1 Reflections on the sources of Incredulity with regard to Religion, p. 3. Edin- 
burgh, 1750. 



94 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. V. 

collision. It is the lamp which yields them the light 
without which life would perish. It is the furnace 
which supplies the fuel without which organic nature 
would be destroyed. Created for such noble purposes, 
we are led by no analogy to assign to it an additional 
function. The very same remark may be applied to 
our moon, and to all the satellites of the system. 
They are the domestic lamps which light the primary 
planets in the absence of the sun, and all of them, 
as well as our own, may exercise the other office of 
producing the tides of their oceans. It is quite 
otherwise with the primary planets : They have no 
conceivable function to perform but that of support- 
ing inhabitants, unless we give them the additional 
one which they are all fit for performing, and which 
they perform so well, of becoming gigantic lamps to 
their satellites; and if we invest them with this 
function, we obtain an argument in favour of the 
satellites themselves being inhabited. 

We are willing therefore to admit, that analogy 
would fail us, were we to attempt by its processes to 
people the sun and the satellites with inhabitants. 
But analogy is not our only guide in such inquiries. 
The creations of the material world, whether they be 
of colossal or atomic magnitude, may have various 
and apparently contradictory purposes to answer ; 
and when we find that other purposes, not cognizable 
by our senses, or not demonstrable by our reason, 
may be promoted by such objects, we cannot resist 



CHAP. V. THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. 95 

the admission that such additional objects may have 
been contemplated in their creation. The great 
masses of ironstone in our earth, while they are a 
necessary part of its framework, and are intended 
mainly to supply man with the tools of civilisation, 
may have the secondary or the tertiary purpose of 
giving life to the needle of the compass, or of con- 
tributing to those great electrical and magnetical 
arrangements which exist on our globe. Though the 
sun then and the satellites are primarily intended 
for the great purposes which they so obviously sub- 
serve, it is not unreasonable to suppose that they 
may also be the seats of life and intelligence. 

After a skilful examination of the solar spots, Sir 
William Herschel has made it highly probable, if not 
certain, that the light of the sun issues from an outer 
stratum of self-luminous or phosphoric clouds, be- 
neath which there is a second stratum of clouds of 
inferior brightness, which is intended to protect the 
solid and opaque body of the sun from the intense 
brilliancy and heat of the luminous clouds. In 
measuring photometrically, the light of these three 
different structures, he found that the light reflected 
outwards by the clouds of the inferior stratum, was 
equal to 469 rays out of a 1000, or less than one-halt 
of the light of the outer stratum ; and that the light 
reflected by the opaque body of the sun below was 
only seven rays out of a 1000. Hence he concluded 
that the outer stratum of self-luminous or phosphoric 



96 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. V. 

clouds was the region of that light and heat which 
are transmitted to the remotest part of the system ; 
while the inferior stratum, which is obviously of a 
different character from the other, is intended to pro- 
tect the inhabitants of the sun from the blaze of the 
stupendous furnace which encloses them. In con- 
firmation of these views, the faint illumination, — 
the seven rays out of a thousand, is a proof that the 
light of the outer stratum, and consequently its heat, 
must be extremely small upon the dark body of the 
luminary which we see through what are called the 
solar spots, which are now universally admitted to be 
openings in the luminous stratum, and not opaque 
scoriae floating on its surface. 

It is curious to observe, how the conjectures in one 
science are sometimes converted into truths by the 
discoveries in another. Sir William Herschel, as we 
have seen, has stated it as the result of many obser- 
vations, that the light of the sun does not proceed, as 
was almost universally believed, from a solid or liquid 
mass in a state of incandescence, or white heat, and 
the fact has been demonstrated by means of a beau- 
tiful optical discovery of M. Arago : — When a solid 
mass becomes luminous by being raised to a red or 
white heat, the rays which emanate from it In every 
direction do not proceed only from its outer superficies. 
They are radiated like those of heat from an infinite 
number of material points below the surface, and 
extending to a certain small depth. The rays which 



CHAP. V. THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. 97 

traverse this thin luminous film, have been found by 
M. Arago to be polarized, whereas, had they proceeded 
from an envelope of flame, they would not have ex- 
hibited this remarkable property. Now, M. Arago 
has also discovered that the rays which issue obliquely 
from the sun's surface are not polarized, and hence 
he is authorized to draw the conclusion confirming 
Sir W. Herschel's opinion, that the light of the sun 
issues from a gaseous envelope of flame, or self-lumi- 
nous matter. 

With this important result before us, we approach 
the question of the habitability of the sun, with the 
certain knowledge that the sun is not a red-hot globe, 
but that its nucleus is a solid opaque mass receiving 
very little light and heat from its luminous atmo- 
sphere. Sir William commences his argument by 
inquiring into the probability of the moon being 
inhabited. 

" The moon/' he says, " is a secondary planet, of a 
considerable size, the surface of which is diversified 
like that of the earth, by mountains and valleys. Its 
situation with respect to the sun is much like that of 
the earth, and, by a rotation upon its axis, it enjoys 
an agreeable variety of seasons, and of day and night. 
To the moon our globe will appear to be a very 
capital satellite, undergoing the same regular changes 
of illumination as the moon does to the earth. The 
sun, the planets, and the starry constellations of the 
heavens, will rise and set there as they do here, and 



98 MOKE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. V. 

heavy bodies will fall on the moon as they do on the 
earth. There seems only to be wanting, in order to 
complete the analogy, that it should be inhabited like 
the earth. 

" To this it may be objected, that we perceive no 
large seas in the moon ; that its atmosphere (the 
existence of which has been doubted by many) is 
extremely rare, and unfit for the purposes of animal 
life ; that its climates, its seasons, and the length of 
its days, totally differ from ours ; that without dense 
clouds (which the moon has not) there can be no 
rain — perhaps no rivers, no la&es. In short, that 
notwithstanding the similarity which has been 
pointed out, there seems to be a decided difference in 
the two planets we have compared. 

" My answer to this will be, that that very differ- 
ence which is now objected will rather strengthen the 
force of my argument than lessen its value : we find 
even upon our globe, that there is the most striking 
difference in the situation of the creatures that live 
upon it. While man walks upon the ground, the 
birds fly in the air, and fishes swim in water, we can 
certainly not object to the convenience afforded by 
the moon, if those that are to inhabit its regions are 
fitted to their conditions as well as we on this globe 
are to ours. An absolute or total sameness seems 
rather to denote imperfections such as nature never 
exposes to our view ; and on this account, I believe 
the analogies that have been mentioned sufficient to 



CHAP. V. THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. 99 

establish the high probability of the moon's being in- 
habited like the earth." 

Sir William Herschel proceeds to put the argument 
iu another shape. He supposes that the inhabitants 
of the moon, and the other satellites, if they do exist, 
are of opinion that the Earth and the other primary 
planets are of no other use but as lamps, and " attrac- 
tive centres to direct their revolution round the sun f 
and he then asks, "if we ought not to condemn their 
ignorance as proceeding from want of attention and 
proper reflection ?" 

From these considerations Sir William thinks that 
the inhabitants of the planets ought to be wiser than 
we have supposed those of their satellites to be. 
'•'From experience/' he adds, "we can affirin, that 
the performance of the most salutary offices to inferior 
planets is not inconsistent with the dignity of supe- 
lior purposes ; and in consequence of such analogical 
reasonings, assisted by telescopic views which plainly 
favour the same opinion, ice need not hesitate to 
admit that the sun is richly stored with inhabitants!' 

From the phenomena of variable stars which Sir 
William supposes to arise from their having spots, 
and revolving about an axis, he considers it as hardly 
admitting of a doubt that the fixed stars are suns ; 
and he comes to the conclusion, that " if stars are 
suns, and suns inhabitable, we see at once what an 
extensive field of animation opens itself to our view." 
" It is true," he adds, " that analogy may induce us 



100 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. V. 

to conclude, that since stars appear to be suns, and 
suns, according to the common opinion, are bodies 
that serve to enlighten, warm, and sustain a system 
of planets, we may have an idea of numberless globes 
that serve for the habitation of living creatures. But 
if these suns themselves are primary planets, we may 
see some thousands of them with our own eyes, and 
millions by the help of telescopes ; when, at the same 
time, the same analogical reasoning still remains 
in full force, with regard to the planets which these 
suns may support/' 1 

The opinion of so distinguished an astronomer as 
Sir William Herschel, cannot fail to have much weight 
on a subject like this ; but though we are desirous 
of strengthening rather than of controverting his ar- 
guments, there are yet some difficulties to be removed, 
and some additional analogies to be adduced, before 
the mind can admit the startling proposition, that 
the sun, moon, and all the satellites, are inhabited 
spheres. We may, indeed, reject this opinion, and 
yet believe implicitly in a plurality of worlds. 

In giving an account of these views of Sir William 
Herschel, Dr. Thomas Young 2 has remarked that 
iC no clouds, however dense, could impede the trans- 
mission of the suns heat to the parts below f and 
that " if every other circumstance permitted human 
beings to reside upon it, their own weight would 



1 Philosophical Transactions, 1795, pp. 65-69 ; and 1801, p. 

2 Elements of Natural Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 501, 502. 



CHAP. V. THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. 101 

present an insuperable difficulty, since it would 
become nearly thirty times as great as upon the sur- 
face of the earth, a man of moderate dimensions 
weighing above two tons!' The first of these diffi- 
culties has certainly no weight. If the heat of the 
bud's rays is proportional to its light, which it must 
be if it is a flame, the darkness of the sun's nucleus 
becomes a measure of its coolness. Even a human 
being might live and breathe upon the solid nucleus 
under the heat which is indicated by seven rays out 
of a thousand. The second objection is equally in- 
applicable, because Sir William has never asserted, 
and never did believe, that the children of the sun 
were to be human beings, but, on the contrary, crea- 
tures " fitted to their condition as well as we on this 
globe are to ours." 

It has been stated as an objection to the proba- 
bility of the sun's being inhabited, that the whole 
firmament would be hid by the double atmosphere 
with which he is surrounded, and that the solar in 
habitants would be excluded from all knowledge of 
the planets which he guides, and of the sidereal uni- 
verse of which he is a part. This, however, is not 
strictly true. The planets and stars would be seen 
distinctly through the numerous openings in the 
solar atmosphere, and as the surface of the nucleus, 
which we suppose to be inhabited, is comparatively 
near to these openings, large portions of the heavens 
would be exposed, to view during the rotation of the 



102 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. V, 

sun. In many parts of our own globe weeks pass 
away without our seeing the sun or the stars, and it 
cannot be doubted that the inhabitants of the sun 
might study astronomy through the casual openings 
in the luminous cupola which encloses them. 

The probability of the sun being inhabited is 
doubtless greatly increased by the simple consider- 
ation of its enormous size. Admitting, with Sir 
William Herschel, that the sun may have a tempe- 
rature adapted even for human constitutions, it is 
difficult to believe that a globe of such magnificence, 
882,000 miles in diameter, upwards of one hundred 
and eleven times the size of our earth, and 1,384,472 
times its bulk, should occupy so distinguished a place 
without intelligent beings to study and admire the 
grand arrangements which exist around them ; and 
it would be still more difficult to believe, if it is 
inhabited, that a domain so extensive, so blessed 
with perpetual light, is not occupied by the highest 
orders of intelligence. In the material world with 
which we are connected, life everywhere meets our 
eye. It is virtually almost a property of matter, and 
therefore to conceive huge masses of matter, that 
are warmed and heated, to be destitute of life, is to 
do violence to our strongest convictions. Those who 
believe life to be the result of second causes, must 
believe in its universal diffusion ; and those who have 
the conviction, that into every living thing the 
Almighty must breathe its breath, will find it diffi- 



CHAP. V. THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. 103 

cult to believe that the life which swarms around 
him on the earth, the ocean, and the air, of his own 
planet, has been denied to the other bodies of the 
system. Universal life upon universal matter is an 
idea to which the mind instinctively clings. King- 
doms without kings and subjects — continents without 
cities — cities without citizens — houses without fa- 
milies — ships without crews, and railway trains 
without passengers, are contingencies as probable as 
solar systems without planets, or planets without 
inhabitants. 

To the arguments so well stated by Sir William 
Herschel in favour of his opinion that the moon is 
inhabited, some important considerations may be 
added. The moon certainly has neither clouds nor 
seas ; but this is no reason why she may not have an 
atmosphere, and a precipitation of moisture upon 
her surface, sufficient for the support of vegetable 
life. The moon may have streams or even rivers 
that lose themselves, as some of our own do, either 
in the dry ground, or in subterranean cavities ; or 
they may be lost by absorption or evaporation, as in 
the dry saline deserts of Australia. There may be 
springs too, and wells sufficient for the use of man ; 
and yet the evaporation from the water thus diffused 
may be insufficient for the formation of clouds, and 
consequently for the production of rain. The air 
may be charged to such a small extent with aqueous 
vapour, that it descends only in gentle dews, to be 



104 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. V. 

absorbed by vegetation, and again returned to the 
atmosphere. Even in our own planet there are re- 
gions of some extent where rain never falls, 1 and 
where the aqueous vapour in the atmosphere descends 
only in refreshing dews. 

Although Sir John Herschel has stated that there 
are no decisive indications of an atmosphere in the 
moon, yet he has given the following very ingenious 
theory of her climate, which implies the -existence of 
an atmosphere, and even of running water. " The 
climate of the moon/' says he, " must be very extra- 
ordinary ; the alternations being that of unmitigated 
and burning sunshine fiercer than an equatorial noon 
continued for a whole fortnight, and the keenest 
severity of frost, far exceeding that of our polar 
winters for an equal time. Such a disposition of 
things must produce a constant transfer of whatever 
moisture may exist on its surface, from the point 
beneath the sun to that opposite, by distillation in 
vacuo, after the manner of the little instrument 
called a cryophorus. The consequence must be ab- 
solute aridity below the vertical sun, constant accre- 
tion of hoar frost in the opposite region, and perhaps 
a narrow zone of running water at the borders of the 
enlightened hemisphere. It is possible, then, that 
evaporation on the one hand, and condensation on 
the other, may, to a certain extent, preserve an equi- 
librium of temperature, and mitigate the extreme 

* See Johnston's Physical Atlas, Plate III. of Meteorology. 



CHAP. V. THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. 105 

severity of both climates ; but this process, which 
would imply the continual generation and destruc- 
tion of an atmosphere of aqueous vapour, must, in 
conformity with what has been said above of a lunar 
atmosphere, be confined within very narrow limits/' 

In some of the principal craters, Sir John Herschel 
tells us " that there are decisive marks of volcanic 
stratification, arising from successive deposits of 
ejected matter, and evident indications of lava cur- 
rents ;" and he admits that " there are large regions 
perfectly level, and apparently of a decided alluvial 
character" — conditions of the moon's surface, which 
demonstrate that there has been an atmosphere to 
promote combustion, and water to produce an allu- 
vion. We do not % understand how modern writers 
on astronomy have overlooked so completely the 
many arguments for the existence of an atmosphere 
in the moon, which have been almost universally ad- 
mitted. Facts observed a century ago by astronomers 
distinguished for their accuracy, are not less impor- 
tant because they have not been observed by their 
successors. Volcanoes may have been seen in the 
moon in the 18th century, though they have not 
been observed in the 19th ; and a decided indication 
of atmospheric action to-day, will not be disproved 
by its invisibility to-morrow. 

That volcanoes or burning regions have been ob- 
served in the dark portion of the moon's disc, cannot 
be doubted. In 1772, Beccaria, and in 1778, Ulloa, 



106 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. V. 

observed a bright white spot on the moon's disc. The 
spot observed by Ulloa and other three observers, 
resembled an opening in the moon ; but Beccaria was 
of opinion that this spot, as well as the one seen by 
himself, was the flame of a burning mountain. 
Various other persons have seen phenomena of the 
same kind ; but all doubt upon this subject was 
removed when so accurate an observer as Sir William 
Herschel announced the discovery of volcanoes in the 
moon. On the 4th May 1783, he perceived a lumi- 
nous spot in the obscure part of the moon, and tvio 
mountains which were formed from the 4th to the 
13th of May ! On the 19th April 1787, he perceived 
u three volcanoes in different places of the dark part of 
the moon. Two of them were already nearly extinct, 
or otherwise in a state going to break out, which per- 
haps may be decided next lunation. The third shews 
an actual eruption off re, or luminous matter. " On 
the following day the volcano was burning with 
greater violence than the night before, and he found 
it equal to twice the size of the second satellite of 
Jupiter, and consequently, above three miles in dia- 
meter. Sir William observed that the eruption re- 
sembled a piece of burning charcoal. These volcanic 
fires were observed also by Cassini, Captain Kater, 
Dr. Maskelyne, and more recently by Admiral Smyth, 
who justly remarks that " they settle the contested 
point of the existence of a lunar atmosphere/' We 
have been surprised at the facility with which Dr. 



THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. ' 107 

Lardner, Mr. Nasmyth, and Mr. Crampton, have 
given up the idea of an atmosphere in the moon, 
without assigning anything like a valid reason for 
their opinion. Maintaining, as they do, that the 
moons surface is covered with the craters of "count- 
less thousands of volcanoes/' and knowing that in the 
opinion of all philosophers, volcanoes are produced 
by the elastic force of gases and vapours, which eject 
the melted lava, and themselves issue, along with it, 
into the ethereal space, how can they suppose that 
these gases are again destroyed, and do not, as they 
must, form an atmosphere round the planet ? Every 
planet whose surface has been perforated with vol- 
canic vents, must necessarily have an atmosphere. 

M. De La Place regards the moon as having an 
atmosphere more attenuated than what is called the 
vacuum in an air-pump ; and MM. Madler 1 and 
Beer, who have studied the moon's surface more dili- 
gently than any of their predecessors or contempo- 
raries, have arrived at the conclusion that she has an 
atmosphere, — that her small mass prevents her from 
retaining around her an extensive portion of it, and 
that the conflicting observations on the form of stars 
and planets eclipsed by the moon, may arise from the 
influence of local causes in " dimming or condensing" 
her highly rarefied atmosphere. 

But, independent of these considerations, we main- 
tain that every planet and satellite in the Solar sys- 

» Der Mond, p. 152. Berlin, 1837. 



108 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. V. 

tern must have an atmosphere. Matter, without water 
and gaseous elements, either as adhering substances 
or as essential parts of it, is unknown to science. The 
water of crystallization of lunar matter must have 
been set free during the agency of volcanic forces, 
and have taken its place round the body of the Moon 
Another origin of the atmospheres of satellites is found 
in the indefinite extension of the atmospheres of their 
primaries. Science has not yet limited the extent of 
the elastic forces of gaseous bodies, and the failure 
of Dr. Wollaston, in his elaborate attempt to prove 
the finite extent of an atmosphere, leaves our position 
in its original force. 

We believe that the whole staff of living astrono- 
mers may be arranged into four classes: — 

1. Those who believe that the zodiacal light, as it 

is called, is the Sun's atmosphere. 

2. Those who believe that the tails of Comets bring 

vapour into our system, and leave portions of 
it behind. 

3. Those who believe in the Nebular Theory ; and 

lastly, 

4. The single individual, the Essayist, who believes 

that the Earth and Moon occupy that middle 
part of the system, " where moist and dry is 
possible," or, as he otherwise expresses it, 
" between the hot and fiery haze on the one 
side, and the cold and watery vapours on the 
other.'' 



CHAP. V. THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. 109 

Of these four classes each and all of them are bound 
by their opinions to believe in a lunar atmosphere. 

1. The Zodiacal light, the Sun's atmosphere, 
extends beyond Venus, and, as Sir John Herschel 
remarks, "attains nearly, perhaps quite, to the 
orbit of the Earth," that is, its luminous part ; but 
it is obvious, that if this part is visible as far as 
our Earth, the weaker part of this atmosphere 
reflecting light too faintly to be appreciated by 
us, when our retina is affected with other light, 
ifiust extend much farther. But even if this is 
not the case, it must certainly reach the Moon when 
in her perihelion, or 240,000 miles nearer the Sun 
than the Earth. Now, though Sir John Herschel 
does not consider this dense and gaseous medium, as 
properly speaking an atmosphere revolving with the 
Sun, yet he considers it as a material resisting mass, 
"'loaded perhaps with the actual materials of the 
tails of millions of comets, of which they have been 
stripped in their successive perihelion passages/' 
Hence it follows, that the moon must draw around 
her, as an atmosphere of her own, a portion of this 
material mass, and even if she were not placed in it, 
she must have received no small portion of it when 
diffused in her vicinity, in the form of comets' tails 
millions of miles in extent. 

2. Those who do not believe in a Solar atmosphere 
extending to the Moon, but believe in the gaseous 
and vaporous character of the tails of millions of 



110 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. V. 

comets passing through our system in all directions, 
must admit that a portion of such atmospheric ele- 
ments could not be withheld from the Moon. The 
Comet of Lexell, which passed among Jupiter's satel- 
lites, must have paid to them for its passage a portion 
of its tail. 

3. Those who believe in the Nebular Theory con- 
sider it as certain that our Earth derived its solid 
matter and its atmosphere from a ring thrown from 
the Solar atmosphere, which afterwards contracted 
into a solid terraqueous sphere, from which the Moon 
was thrown off by the same process. The Moon, 
therefore, must necessarily have carried off water and 
air from the watery and aerial parts of the Earth, 
and must have an atmosphere. 

4. The Essayist, who believes in the nebular hypo- 
thesis, must, therefore, admit an atmosphere in the 
Moon ; but he is doubly bound to admit it, and can- 
not escape from the admission, when he adds to the 
nebular theory the hypothesis of his own that the 
watery parts of the Sun's atmosphere were " driven 
into the outer orbs," the fiery parts reserved for 
Mercury and Venus ; and the Earth, and the Moon of 
course, placed between the wet and the dry " lumps" of 
the solar system, with all that coolness and moisture 
which is essential to organic life. In its passage 
outwards the Moon could not have escaped from the 
watery current in which it lay, even if it had, at 
that time, been divorced from its parent Earth. 



CHAP. V. THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. Ill 

But the Essayist is committed to a belief in a lunar 
atmosphere by another hypothesis in which he has 
indulged. Our readers may perhaps know that about 
the loth of November and the 10th of August a 
much greater number of shooting or falling stars 
occur than at any other time of the year. The 
Essayist considers these shooting stars as " specks of 
nebulse," and outriders of the zodiacal light, (the 
sun's atmosphere,) portions of it which being external 
to the permanently nebulous central mass have 
broken into patches and are seen as stars for the 
moment we are near to them/' — that is, portions of a 
nebulous mass moist and dry. Now, as the Earth 
ivith the Moon passes through this nebular region 
twice a year, the Moon must carry off and surround 
herself with an atmosphere of this matter. Nay, 
we go much farther in following out these views. 
Shooting stars fall at all seasons of the year, though 
they fall in greater numbers in August and Novem- 
ber than in any other month. From observations 
made in Paris by M. Coulvier Gravier, from July 
1841 to February 1845, it appears that in each of 
the first six months of the year the hourly mean 
number of shooting stars was nearly 4*00, more ac- 
curately 3*6, while in July, August, and September, 
the number was 7|, and in October, November, and 
December, nearly 9. It is evident, therefore, that in 
every part of the Earth's orbit the Earth and Moon 
are involved in the nebular matter, (moist and dry,) 



112 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. V. 

which form the shooting stars. The Moon conse- 
quently, if the speculation of the Essayist be cor- 
rect, must be surrounded with an atmosphere of 
the vaporous matter through which she continually 
moves. 

Although Sir John Herschel broadly asserts, that 
in the occultations of stars and planets by the moon, 
there is no appearance whatever of an atmosphere ; 
yet we have many facts which stand in direct oppo- 
sition to this statement. Cassini assures us, that he 
frequently observed the circular figure of Jupiter, 
Saturn, and the fixed stars changed into an elliptical 
one, when they approached either the dark or the 
illuminated limb of the moon. Mr. Dunn saw Saturn 
and his ring emerge from the moon's limb like a 
comet ; Admiral Smyth has observed not only a 
diminution of the star's brightness, but an apparent 
projection of the star on the moon's disc at the in- 
stant of contact ; and M. Schroeter of Lilienthal, with 
fine telescopes, observed "several obscurations and 
returning serenity, eruptions, and other changes in 
the lunar atmosphere." The same astronomer dis- 
covered the twilight of the moon at the extremity of 
its cusps, and he found by measurement, that the 
inferior or more dense part of the moon's atmosphere 
was not above 1500 feet, or the third of a mile high, 
while the height of the atmosphere where it could 
affect the brightness of a fixed star, is not above 5742 
feet, or not much more than a mile. Hence we see 



CHAP. V. THE SUN AND THE SATELLITES. 113 

the reason why changes are only occasionally pro- 
duced upon stars occulted by the moon. Her atmo- 
sphere is greatly lower than her mountains. When 
the stars, therefore, enter, or emerge from, behind 
mountains higher than her atmosphere, they are not 
affected by refraction ; and when behind mountains 
or level plains lower than her atmosphere, they are 
affected by the refraction of the superincumbent air. 
It is evident, therefore, from all these facts, 
that in her volcanoes, active and extinct, in her 
twilight, and in her action upon immerging and 
emerging stars, by which they have been frequently 
seen projected on her disc, the moon exhibits such 
proofs of an atmosphere, that we have a new ground 
from analogy for believing that she either has in- 
habitants, or is in a state of preparation for receiving 
them. 

Had the moon been destined to be merely a lamp 
to our earth, there was no occasion to variegate its 
surface with lofty mountains and valleys, and deep 
cavities, and extinct volcanoes, and cover it with 
large patches of matter, that reflect different quanti- 
ties of light of different tints, and give parts of its 
surface, such as the Mare Serenitatis, Mare Cri- 
sium, and Mare Humorum, the appearance of green 
fields, continents, and seas. 1 It would have been a 
better lamp had it been a smooth sphere of lime or of 

1 Dr. Olbers was of opinion that the surface of the moon exhibited signs of 
vegetation, and that she was inhabited. 

H 



114 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. GHAP. V. 

chalk, and it would have performed equally well its 
other function of producing the tides in our ocean. 
The existence of extinct volcanoes too, the upheaval 
of lofty mountains, are proofs of a progression in its 
physical history — of a preparation, perhaps long ago 
made, for the reception of inhabitants. That it is 
not now preparing may be inferred from the absence 
of every appearance of change, since its surface has 
been studied by astronomers. 

If it is probable, then, that the moon is inhabited, 
the same degree of probability may be extended to 
all the other satellites of the system. Their great 
distance from the earth prevents us from examining 
their surface ; but even without any indication of 
mountains and valleys, or of any forces that have dis- 
turbed or are still disturbing their surface, analogy 
compels us to conclude, that like all other material 
spheres, the satellites of the planets must have been 
created for the double purpose of giving light to their 
primaries, and a home to animal and intellectual life. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE SYSTEM OF COMETS. 



The Solar system consists of two different groups 
of bodies, namely, the Planetary system and the 
system of Comets. The Planetary system consists of 
eight primary planets, thirty asteroids, and twenty- 
two secondary planets or moons, circulating round 
their primaries. All the eight primary planets move 
very nearly in one plane, rising only a few degrees 
(less than 3° on the average) above the plane of the 
ecliptic, or that in which the Earth moves round the 
Sun. The orbits of the thirty asteroids have all de- 
grees of inclination from two-thirds of a degree, that 
of Massilia, to 34° 37', that of Pallas, the average 
being about 7°. The comets, on the contrary, move 
at all possible angles to the ecliptic, and in all possible 
directions, so that if their orbits could be supposed 
to be fixed and luminous lines, they would form a 
luminous sphere, on whose equator the planetary 
system would be seen as a narrow luminous band, if 
their orbits were also fixed and luminous. 



116 MOKE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. VI. 

These two groups of bodies are essentially different 
in their nature, as well as in the form and position of 
their orbits. We have already stated that comets re- 
semble a piece of cloud or vapour ; but many of them 
have what is called a nucleus, or what resembles a 
solid centre, while others have a disc as round and 
well defined as Jupiter. This nucleus, however, 
never exhibits phases like the Moon, and therefore 
cannot be considered as a solid body, though in some 
comets solidity is indicated by a minute star-like 
point in the centre. 

Comets are as variable in their motions as in their 
forms. Some move very slow, and others with such a 
velocity as to describe an arch of 40° in a day. 

There are, doubtless, many hundred comets be- 
longing to the Solar system. The orbits of no fewer 
than two hundred have been collected by Mr. Cooper 
of Markree Castle, and hundreds more have passed 
over our system unseen. 

Although astronomers have not been able to dis- 
cover the use of this remarkable and numerous class 
of celestial bodies, yet it cannot be doubted that they 
perform some important function in the Solar system, 
necessary and useful to all the bodies of the planetary 
group. Sir Isaac Newton, who has speculated more 
on the nature of comets than other philosophers, re- 
gards their tails as a very fine vapour, which is emitted 
by the head or nucleus of the comet when heated by 
the Sun, and he is of opinion that this vapour, so fre- 



CHAP. VI. THE SYSTEM OF COMETS. 117 

quently rarefied and diluted, may at last be dissipated 
and scattered through the whole heavens, and by 
little and little be attracted towards the planets by 
its gravity, and mixed with their atmosphere. " For 
as the seas," as Sir Isaac observes, " are necessary to 
the constitution of our Earth, in order that the Sun 
by his heat may exhale from them a sufficient quan- 
tity of vapour, which, being collected in clouds, may 
descend in rains, and w r ater and nourish all the earth 
for the production of vegetables ; or, being condensed 
by the cold summits of mountains, may run down in 
springs and rivers ; so comets seem to be required for 
the conservation of the seas and fluids of planets, in 
order that, from their condensed exhalations and 
vapours, the water consumed in vegetables and pu- 
trefaction, and converted into dry earth, may be con- 
tinually replaced and supplied. 1 For all vegetables 
grow wholly from fluids, and then are, to a great 
extent, turned into dry earth by putrefaction, a slime 
perpetually settling from putrefying fluids. Hence it 
is that the bulk of the solid earth is continually in- 
creasing, and that its fluids, if not supplied from any 
other source, must constantly decrease, and at last 
entirely fail. I suspect, also, that the comets supply 
our air with that which is the smallest, and most 
subtle, and useful part of it, and which is required 
to sustain the life of everything/' 2 

1 It is obvious, from this passage, that Sir Isaac Newton believed in a plurality 
of worlds. See Chap. IV. 

2 Principia. Lib. TIL Prob. XLI. 



118 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. VI. 

According to these views of our great philosopher, 
the use of comets is to fill the whole planetary spaces 
with moisture, and thus to supply each planet, whether 
primary or secondary, with the moisture which is lost 
by vegetation, putrefaction, or any other cause. If 
the planets are not inhabited by man or by beast, 
this supply of moisture would not be wanted ; and it 
would be a strange supposition that such an array of 
hundreds of comets should be created to supply our 
own little planet with the water which it may re- 
quire. 

But even if Sir Isaac Newton's opinion of ; the use 
of comets is incorrect, it cannot be doubted that 
they exercise some function beneficial to the whole 
planetary system, a function for which we can see 
but little use if the earth only is inhabited. The 
Solar system, consisting of planets and comets, and 
satellites, is obviously one magnificent and symmetri- 
cal creation, 

" All are but parts of one stupendous whole," 

each part having different and glorious purposes to 
perform. The function of one comet, could we ascer- 
tain it, must be the function of all ; the function of 
one satellite must be the function of all ; and the 
function of one planet must be the function of all 
the rest. The function of the comets has not yet 
been revealed to us. The function of our Moon, to 
give light to the Earth, must be the function of the 



CHAP. VI. THE SYSTEM OF COMETS. 119 

other twenty-two moons of the system ; and the 
function of the Earth, to support inhabitants, must 
be the function of all the other planets. 

" From nature's chain, whatever link you strike, 
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike." 



CHAPTER VII. 

ON THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

The reference which has already been made to the 
Nebular Hypothesis, and the adoption of it by the 
author of the Essay "Of a Plurality of Worlds/' render 
it necessary that we should give some account of it 
to our readers. Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho, Kepler, 
and Newton, having no other guide than Scripture, 
believed that God made the worlds, and upheld all 
things by the word of His power. After creating by 
His mighty fiat the gigantic Sun as the centre of the 
Solar system, He created the planets and their satel- 
lites, launching them from their proper positions in 
space, and with their proper velocities on their daily 
and annual movements. Philosophers of another 
school were not satisfied with these views, and, we 
believe, on the authority of Laplace, that Buffon was 
the first person, since the discovery of the true system 
of the world, who attempted to explain the origin of 
the planets and their satellites. He supposes that a 
comet falling upon the sun dashed from it a torrent 



CHAP. VII. ON THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 121 

of matter, which was formed in the distance into 
different globes of greater or less magnitude, and 
more or less distant from the great luminary. These 
globes are the planets and the satellites which, after 
cooling, become opaque and solid. In this extrava- 
gant speculation, the sun and the comets were made 
by the fiat of the Almighty, and the comets directed 
by the same power towards the sun. Why, then, 
was a secondary cause required to make the little 
planets, when it was dispensed with in the case of 
the sun and comets ? When these two bodies, five 
hundred times greater than all the planets put 
together, were made by the direct agency of God, 
why was not this same agency employed in com- 
pleting the system ? 

Dissatisfied with this very puerile hypothesis, La- 
place invents another more ingenious, but equally at 
variance with reason and with Scripture. In order 
to explain the motion of all the bodies in our system 
in one direction, he supposes a central sun to be 
originally created, and made to revolve, with a large 
atmosphere, which, by excessive heat, expands beyond 
the orbits of all the planets. Neptune, the most 
remote, was formed by the outer zone of this atmo- 
sphere being condensed, by cooling and shrinking, 
into a planet. By the same process UraDUS was 
formed, and last of all, Mercury, the sun's atmosphere 
having now shrunk within the orbit of that planet. 
In like manner all the planets, without satellites, 



122 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. YII. 

threw off rings from themselves, which contracted 
into satellites. 1 To this hypothesis, it is a sufficient 
answer to state, that when Laplace proposed it, it was 
believed that all the planets and satellites moved in 
the same direction from west to east, but since that 
time all the satellites of Uranus have been found to 
move in the opposite direction, and Mr. Hind has 
very recently found that the satellite of Neptune also 
moves in the opposite direction, thus proving that 
the hypothesis is utterly incapable of explaining the 
celestial motions. 

In this hypothesis the direct creative power of the 
Almighty was employed in making the sun and his 
atmosphere, and giving them a motion of rotation. 
The same power surely, without the agency of second- 
ary causes, -might have equally created the planets 
and satellites, and launched them in their orbits. 

In more recent times this speculation has been 
pushed to a much greater extent. The universe is 
supposed to be filled with fire-mist, or star-dust, as it 
has been called, something like a mixture of smoke 
and steam. From some unknown cause, two par- 
ticles attract one another, and are then surrounded by 
others, which become an infant sun, wriggling itself 
into motion, — increasing in size, and carrying round 
with it the whole mass of fire-mist within the orbit 
of Neptune, and then forming planets and satellites, 

1 From this hypothesis it necessarily follows that all the satellites, as well as 
all the planets, must have atmospheres. 



CHAP. VII. ON THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 123 

as in the last hypothesis. Here, as before, the direct 
creative power of the Almighty is required to gene- 
rate the fire-mist, but when this is done, His arm is 
paralyzed, and the Solar system is manufactured by 
secondary causes. 

The Nebular hypothesis has been adopted by the 
author of the Essay " Of a Plurality of Worlds/' the 
only English philosopher who can be named as giving 
it the smallest countenance. His object in adopting 
it is to K find additional proofs in favour of his view 
of the system," and he employs it to explain how the 
inferior planets, Venus and Mercury, cannot have in- 
habitants, " because they have not yet fully emerged 
from the atmosphere in which they had their origin, 
— the mother light, and mother fire, in which they 
began to crystallize, as crystals do in their mother 
water." In like manner he maintains that the four 
exterior planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Nep- 
tune — cannot have inhabitants, because they are 
" immense clouds," mere " water and vapour packed 
into rotating masses," having been "driven to the 
outer parts of the system, or retained there by the 
central heat of the sun." As for the eighteen or 
nineteen satellites of these unfortunate water planets, 
and the thirty asteroids, he pronounces them to be 
"mere shreds and specks of planetary matter," or 
" watery globes, with perhaps a lump, or a few similar 
lumps of planetary matter at their centre." 

Such is the addition to the Nebular hypothesis, for 



124 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. VII. 

which the author claims the high praise of " reducing 
into consistency and connexion, in a manner which 
seems wonderful, the very extraordinary number of 
points in the Solar system hitherto unexplained." 
These points, of which he thus boasts of having dis- 
covered the cause, are twelve in number; but we 
deny that he has given the slightest explanation of 
any one of them, and we assert that there is not a 
philosopher in the civilized world that thinks other- 
wise than we do. The hypothesis has not even the 
merit of ingenuity. It is at once presumptuous and 
fanciful, subversive of every principle of the inductive 
philosophy, degrading to science, incompatible with 
religious truth, and dishonouring to the great Author 
of the material universe. 1 

1 Sir Isaac Newton's opinion of the Nebular hypothesis will be found in Chap. 
XV. and XVT 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

THE MOTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM ROUND A DISTANT 
CENTRE. 

Had our Sun, with all the planets and comets 
which he controls, been absolutely fixed in space, our 
system could have had no connexion with the other 
systems of the universe. The immense void that 
separates it from the stars, would have been regarded 
as the barrier which confined it. Astronomers, how- 
ever, have not only placed it beyond a doubt that the 
Solar system is advancing in absolute space, but have 
determined the direction in which it moves, and, 
within certain limits, the velocity of its motion. 
This great cosmical truth, the grandest in astronomy, 
proves that our Solar system is not the central system 
of the universe, and will furnish us with a new argu- 
ment for a plurality of worlds. 

The first astronomer who suggested the idea of such 
a motion, was the celebrated Dr. Halley, 1 who was 
led to it by comparing the places of Sirius, Arcturus, 
and Aldebaran, as determined by the observations of 

1 Phil. Trans., 1718. No. 355. i v. vi. 



126 MOKE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. VIII. 

Hipparchus and Flamsteed. The French astrono- 
mers, Cassini and Le Monnier, noticed the same fact ; 
but it is to Tobias Mayer 1 of Gottingen that we are 
indebted for a more complete examination of the 
subject. By comparing the places of eighty fixed 
stars, as determined by Eoemer in 1706, with their 
places as observed by Lacaille in 1750, and himself 
in 1756, he found that the greater number of them 
had p, 'proper motion, that is, a motion that could 
not be explained by any cause connected with the 
motion of our earth in its orbit, or upon its axis. 
In order to explain this motion, he suggested that it 
might arise from a progressive motion of the sun to 
one quarter of the heavens, in consequence of which 
the stars to which he was approaching would appear 
to recede from each other, while those in the opposite 
region from which he was moving would appear to 
approach one another ; and he illustrated this idea 
by supposing a person walking in a field surrounded 
by trees, in which case the trees to which he ap- 
proached would appear to separate, or their dis- 
tance to increase, while those which he left behind 
would appear to approach to one another, or their 
distance to diminish, the trees on his right and left 
hand preserving the same apparent distance from 
each other. This was the true cause of the proper 
motion of the stars, but owing to the imperfection of 
astronomical instruments in the time of Eoemer, and 

i Opera Inedita, 1775. Be Motufixarum proprio, pp. 77-81. 



CHAP. VIII. MOTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 127 

even in Mayer's time, the observed proper motion 
did not correspond with his explanation of it ; and he 
quitted the subject with the remark, that many cen- 
turies must elapse before the true cause of this motion 
can be explained. 

Astronomy, however, was advancing more rapidly 
than its most ardent votaries imagined, and, before 
ft single century elapsed, the motion of the Solar 
system in space, as the cause of the proper motion 
of the stars, became a great truth, commanding the 
assent and the admiration of every cultivator of 
astronomy. 

Although Dr. Wilson 1 of Glasgow had pointed out, 
on theoretical principles, the probability of a progres- 
sive motion of the Sun, and Lambert 2 and La Lande 3 
had deduced it from the idea, that the same mechan- 
ical impulse which gave the Sun its rotatory motion 
upon its axis, would displace its centre and give it a 
motion of translation, yet it was not till Sir William 
Herschel, 4 in 1783, analyzed the accurate observations 
of Dr. Maskelyne on thirty-five fixed stars, that a 
decided step was made in the investigation. He 
found that, in 1790, the Solar system was advancing 
to the star X in the constellation Hercules, or to a 
point in the heavens whose right ascension is 260° 
34', and north declination 26° 17'. By similar cal- 

1 Thoughts on General Gravitation, 1777. 

2 Systerrrf du Monde, pp. 152-158; and Lettres Cosmologiques, 1761, p. 126. 

3 Mem. Acad. Par. 1776, p. 513. 

* Phil. Trans., 1783, p. 247 : 1805, pp. 233-256. 



128 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. VIII. 

dilations, M. Prevost 1 found the right ascension of 
the same point to be 230°, with north declination 
25° ; and M. Klugel 2 made it 260°, with north decli- 
nation 27°, — a result almost the same as that of Sir 
William Herschel. 

It would be inconsistent with the nature of an 
Essay like this to enter into more minute details upon 
this subject. We shall, therefore, give a tabular view 
of the results which have been obtained from places 
of the fixed stars, taken with the more accurate 
instruments of the present day, at the principal 
Observatories in Europe, and by the accomplished 
astronomers that direct them : — 

Right Ascension and Declination of the Point to which the Solar 
System is advancing. 



Observers. 


Eight 
Ascension. 


Probable 
Error. 


North Probable 
Declination. Error. 


No. 
of Stan 
used. 


Argelander I. 


256° 25'1 ± 


12° 21'-3 


38° 37''2 ± 9° 21'-4 


21 


Argelander H. 


255° 9'7 ± 


8° 34'0 


38° 34'3 ± 5° 55'-6 


50 


Argelander in. 


261° 10'7 ± 


3° 48 r -9 


30° 58'1 ± 2° 31'-4 


319 


Lundahl IV. 


252° 24'-4 ± 


5° 25 / 3 


14° 26 / l ± 4° 29'-3 


147 


Otto Struve V. 


261° 23'«1 ± 


4° 49'-9 


37° 35'7 ± 4° ll'-8 


392 


Mean result VI. 


259° 9''4 ± 


2° 57'* 


34° 36'-5 ± 3° W'5 





The signs + and — in this table indicate that the 
probable error may extend on each side of the tabu- 
lar number, by the quantities before which they are 
placed. 

As the stars from which the preceding deductions 
have been made were those which are visible in the 

1 Mem. Acad. Berlin, 1781. 3 Berlin Ephemeris, 1782. 



CHAP. VIII. MOTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 129 

Observatories of Europe, it became interesting to 
determine the point to which the Solar system was 
moving, from the proper motion of the stars that 
are visible in the Southern hemisphere. This inves- 
tigation has been lately made by our distinguished 
countr}Tnan, the late Mr. Thomas Galloway, 1 by 
means of eighty-one stars that were observed by 
Lacaille in 1751 and 1752, compared with those 
observed by Mr. Johnson at St. Helena in 1829- 
1833, and by our countryman, the late Mr. Hen- 
derson, at the Cape, in 1830, 1831. The result of 
this inquiry is, that the point of space to which 
our Sun is approaching is situated, as in the fol- 
lowing table — 

Observer. E. Ascension. N. Declination. Prob. Error. 

Galloway, VIL 260° 0''6 ± 4° 31''4 34° 23' -4 ± 5° 17' "2 

General Mean, VIIL 259° 35'-0 ± 3° 44'*4 34° 30'-0 ± 4° 20'-8 

Hence it appears, that the result obtained from the 
southern stars agrees with that from the northern 
ones, within 35' of right ascension, and 7' of declina- 
tion, a coincidence so extraordinary as to amount to 
a demonstration of the great physical truth which it 
indicates. 

But astronomers have not been satisfied with 
merely determining the direction to which the Sun, 
with all his planets, is advancing in space : They 
have calculated, within certain limits of error, the 

* Phil. Trans., 1847. 

1 



130 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. VIII, 

velocity with which he moves ! Assuming the parallax 
of stars of the first magnitude to be 0"*209, as deter- 
mined by his father, M. Otto Struve finds that the 
angular value of the annual motion of the Solar sys- 
tem, if seen at right angles from the distance of such 
a star, is 0"*3392, with a probable error of 0"*03623 ; 
and taking the radius of the Earth's orbit as unity, 

fi".QQQ9 

we have „. " or 1*623, with a probable error of 

0*229, as the annual motion of the Sun in space, 
reckoned in radii of the Earth's orbit. That is, tak- 
ing 95 millions of miles as the mean radius of the 
Earth's orbit, we have 95 x 1*623 = 154*185 millions 
of miles, and consequently — 



The velocity of the Solar system is 
Do. do. 

Do. do. 

Do. do. 

Do. do. 



English Miles, ] 

154,185,000 in a year. 
422,424 in a day. 
17,601 in an hour 
293 in a minute. 
4.9 in a second. 



" Here, then," says M. Struve, senior, " we have 
the splendid result of the united studies of MM. Ar- 
gelander, O. Struve, and Peters, grounded on obser- 
vations made at the three Observatories of Dorpat, 
Abo, and Pulkova, and which is expressed in the fol- 
lowing thesis : — ' The motion of the Solar system in 
space is directed to a point of the celestial vault, 
situated, on the right line which joins the two stars ir 
and fi Hercutis, at a quarter of the apparent distance 
between these stars from ir Rerculis. The velocity 
of this motion is such, that the Sun, with all the 



CHAP. VIII. MOTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 131 

bodies which depend upon hiin, advances annually 
in the above direction 1*623 times the radius of the 
Earth's orbit, or 133,550,000 geographical miles. 
The possible error of this last number amounts to 
17,330,000° geographical miles, or a seventh of the 
whole value. We may thus wager 400,000 to 1 that 
the Sun has a proper progressive motion, and 1 to 1 
that it is comprised between the limits of 38 and 
29 millions of geographical miles/ "* 

As there is no such thing in the heavens as a rec- 
tilineal motion, it is evident that the Sun, with all 
his planets and comets, is in rapid motion round an 
invisible body. 2 To that now dark and mysterious 
centre, from which no ray however feeble shines, we 
may, in another age, point our telescopes, detecting, 
perchance, the great luminary which controls our 
system, and bends its path into that vast orbit which 
man, in the whole cycle of his race, may never be 
allowed to round. If the buried relics of primeval 
life have taught us how brief has been our tenure of 
this terrestrial paradise, compared with its occupancy 
by the brutes that perish, the grand sidereal truth 
which we have been expounding impresses upon us 
the no less humbling lesson, that from the birth of 
man to the extinction of his race, the system to which 
he belongs will have described but an infinitesimal 
arc in that grand cosmical orbit in which it is des- 

1 Etudes cCAstronomie Stellaire, p. 108. 

2 Professor MMler, without any very weighty reasons, makes the star Alcyone 
the brightest of the Pleiades, the centre of the Sun's orbit. 



132 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. VIII. 

tined to revolve. If reason ever falters beneath the 
weight of its conceptions, it is under this overwhelm- 
ing idea of time and of space. One round, doubtless, 
of this immeasurable path will the Sun be destined 
to describe. How long a journey has it made in the 
past ! How brief in the present ! How endless in 
the future ! 

We have thus endeavoured to give our readers an 
accurate idea of the nature and grandeur of this 
great cosmical movement, not merely because it 
supplies us with a new argument for a plurality 
of worlds, but because the author of the Essay al- 
ready quoted, who denies this doctrine, has com- 
pletely misrepresented the great truth of the motion 
of the Solar system. Foreseeing its efficacy as 
an argument for more worlds than one, he has 
shunned the description of it even as a theory, 
and represented it to his readers as among " the 
conjectures of astronomers," and as founded upon 
" minute inquiries and bold conjectures," which he 
need not notice, as they "have no bearing on his 
subject.''' 1 

That the sidereal phenomena thus stigmatized are 
not conjectures, but truths, admitted by every astrono- 
mer, our readers have seen. That they have a bearing 
on the doctrine which we are maintaining, we shall 
endeavour to shew. The argument for a plurality 
of worlds may have two forms. It may embrace a 

1 Of a Plurality of Worlds, pp. 157, 15a 



CHAP. VIII. MOTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 133 

new point of analogy between the inhabited Earth 
and any of the planets, primary or secondary ; and 
since our Solar system is a system containing inha- 
bitants, even if the Earth is the only planet that 
contains them, any point of analogy between that 
system and any other system of stars in which there 
is a distinct movement of one star round another, 
becomes an argument for the existence of inhabitants, 
or of an inhabited planet in the other. It may have 
also a second form, namely, that which is called a 
reductio ad absivrdum^ that is, an argument in which 
it is shewn that the opposite opinion is an absurdity. 
The strictest truths in geometry have been considered 
as demonstrated by this species of argument, and 
it is still more applicable in the present case, where 
mathematical certainty cannot be attained, because 
there may be different degrees of absurdity, and we 
may have an argumentum ad abstcrdiorern, and an 
argumentum ad dbsurdissimum. 

To illustrate this, let us suppose that, at a certain 
period in the history of astronomy, the Earth was 
believed to be the only planet that moved round the 
Sun. The astronomer of that day must have thought 
it strange that a sun 882,000 miles in diameter should 
be employed to light and to heat a planet only 7926 
miles in diameter, seeing that a smaller sun nearer 
the Earth would have been sufficient for the purpose. 
When Venus was discovered and found to be a planet 
of the same size as the Earth, with mountains and 



134 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. VIII. 

valleys, days and nights, and years analogous to our 
own, astronomers could not fail to think it probable 
that she was inhabited like the Earth ; and the 
absurdity of believing that she had no inhabitants, 
when no other rational purpose could be assigned for 
her creation, became an argument of a certain 
amount that she was like the Earth, the seat of ani- 
mal and vegetable life. When Jupiter was dis- 
covered, and was found to be so gigantic a planet 
that it required four moons to give him light, the 
argument from analogy that he was inhabited became 
stronger, from the fact of his having moons, and the 
argument for a plurality of worlds became stronger 
also, because the analogy was extended to two planets. 
In like manner, every discovery of a new planet, 
either with new points of analogy, or with those 
previously existing in other planets, became an addi- 
tional argument from analogy. When the system, 
therefore, was completed by the discovery of Saturn, 
Uranus, Neptune, and their numerous satellites, and 
when astronomers had discovered the existence of 
atmospheres, and clouds, and arctic snows, and trade 
winds in Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, the 
argument from analogy attained a degree of force 
which it had not in the time of Fontenelle ; and 
when combined with the absurdity of the opposite 
opinion that planets could have moons and no inha- 
bitants, atmospheres with no creatures to breathe in 
them, and currents of air without life to be fanned, 



CHAP. VIII. MOTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 135 

it acquired a power of conviction which few minds 3 
if any, could resist. 

Considering the Solar system as stationary in 
space, and unconnected with any other system, the 
argument for the existence of inhabitants on its 
planets, has a certain fixed value compounded of the 
argument from analogy, and the degree of absurdity 
which attaches to the idea of the planets being lumps 
of moving matter shone upon, and shining in vain. 
But when we have proved that this Solar system 
is revolving round some distant centre, in an orbit 
of such inconceivable dimensions that thousands 
of years must be required to perform one single 
round : — When we consider that this distant centre 
must, from analogy, be a sun, with attendant planets, 
like our own, revolving in like manner round our 
sun, or round their common centre of gravity, the 
mind rejects, almost with indignation, the ignoble 
sentiment that man, in his little chariot of Earth, is 
the only living being that performs this immeasurable 
journey, and that Jupiter, and Saturn, and Uranus, 
and Neptune, with their bright array of regal train- 
bearers, and Mars, Venus, and Mercury are but 
colossal blocks of lifeless mud and clay encumbering 
the Earth as a drag, and mocking the creative 
majesty of heaven. 

It is hardly necessary to illustrate these views by 
more familiar similitudes. The architect of a solar 
system stationary in space, and with but one of its 



.36 MORE WORLD THAN ONE. CHAP. VIII. 

smallest planets inhabited, may in some degree be 
likened to a sovereign, who, in sending a military 
colony to cultivate and defend an island in the Pacific, 
engaged twenty-Jive soldiers, one of whom was a light 
infantry man, who did all the honours and duties of 
the island, while the other twenty-four were tall and 
powerful grenadiers, who enjoyed themselves day and 
night upon merry-go-rounds, heated by genial fires, 
and lighted by brilliant chandeliers of gas, but per- 
forming no useful work, and doing no honour to their 
king. The Creator of the same solar system launched 
into an orbit of immeasurable circuit, and wheeling 
through ether with the velocity of nearly five miles 
in a second, may have some resemblance to a mighty 
autocrat, who should establish a railway round the 
coasts of Europe and Asia, and place upon it an 
enormous train of first-class carriages, impelled year 
after year by tremendous steam power, while there 
was but a philosopher and a culprit in an humble van, 
attended by hundreds of unoccupied carriages and 
empty trucks ! 

Since every fixed star, considered as the centre of 
a system, must have planets upon which to shine, 
we are furnished with a new argument from analogy, 
from the fact of our Solar system revolving round a 
sun with a similar system of planets, for as there is 
at least one inhabited planet in the one system, there 
must for the same reason be one inhabited planet in 
the other, and consequently, there must be more 



CEAP. VIII. MOTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 137 

inhabited worlds than one — as many indeed as 
there are systems in the universe. This argu- 
ment will be better understood when we have 
treated, in a future chapter, of binary systems of 
stars, to which the Newtonian law of gravity has 
been found applicable. 



CHAPTER IX, 



RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 



It is as injurious to the interests of religion, as it 
is degrading to those of science, when the votaries of 
either place them in a state of mutual antagonism. 
A mere inference or a hypothesis in science, however 
probable, must ever give way to a truth revealed ; 
but a scientific truth must be maintained, however 
contradictory it may appear to the most cherished 
doctrines of religion. In freely discussing the subject 
of a plurality of worlds, there can be no collision 
between Eeason and Revelation. Christians, timid 
and ill-informed, have, at different periods, refused 
to accept of certain results of science, which, instead 
of being adverse to their faith, have been its best 
auxiliaries ; and infidel writers, taking advantage of 
this weakness, have vainly arrayed the discoveries 
and inferences of astronomy against the fundamental 
doctrines of Scripture. This unseemly controversy, 
which once raged respecting the motion of the Earth 
and the stability of the Sun, and more recently in 
reference to the doctrines and theories of geology, 



CHAP. IX. RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 139 

terminated, as it always must do. in favour of science. 
Truths physical have an origin as divine as truths 
religious. In the time of Galileo they triumphed 
over the casuistry and secular power of the Church ; 
and in our own day the incontrovertible truths of 
primeval life have won as noble a victory over the 
errors of a speculative theology, and a false interpre- 
tation of the word of God. Science ever has been, 
and ever must be the handmaid of religion. The 
grandeur of her truths may transcend our failing 
reason, but those who cherish and lean upon truths 
equally grand, but certainly more incomprehensible, 
ought to see in the marvels of the material world 
the best defence and illustration of the mysteries of 
their faith. 

In referring to the planets of our own system, and 
to those which surround the fixed stars as suns, Dr. 
Bentley justly remarks, " that if any person will in- 
dulge himself in this speculation, he need not quarrel 
with revealed religion upon such an account. The Holy 
Scriptures do not forbid him to suppose as great a 
multitude of systems, and as much inhabited as he 
pleases. 'Tis true there is no mention in Moses's 
narrative of the creation of any people in other pla- 
nets. But it plainly appears that the sacred historian 
doth onlv treat of the origin of terrestrial animals : 
he hath given us no account of God's creating the 
angels ; and yet the same author in the ensuing 
parts of the Pentateuch, makes not unfrequent men- 



140 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX. 

tion of the angels of God. Neither need we be soli- 
citous about the condition of those planetary people, 
nor raise frivolous disputes how far they may parti- 
cipate in Adam's fall or in the benefits of Christ's 
incarnation. As if because they are supposed to be 
Rational they must needs be concluded to be Men" 
He then goes on to shew that there may be " minds 
of superior or meaner capacities than human united 
to a human body/' and " minds of human capacities 

united to a different body" " so that 

we ought not upon any account to conclude that if 
there be rational inhabitants in the Moon or Mars, or 
any unknown planets of other systems, they must 
therefore have human natures, or be involved in the 
circumstances of our world/' 1 

The doctrine of a plurality of worlds, — of the occu- 
pation of the planets and stars by animal and intel- 
lectual life, has been stated as " a popular argument 
against Christianity not much dwelt upon in books, 
but, it is believed, a good deal insinuated in conver- 
sation, and having no small influence on the amateurs 
of a superficial philosophy." 2 Although we have felt 
that such a difficulty might be made an objection to 
Christianity, we have never heard it made in conver- 
sation, and have met with it only in one infidel pub- 
lication ; but as it has been so prominently brought 
into view by Dr. Chalmers, and also by the author of 

1 On the Confutation of Atheism, &c, 1693, pp. 6-8. 

2 Chalmers's Discourses, &c. Discourse I. 



CHAP. IX. RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 141 

the Essay Of a Plurality of Worlds, it is necessary 
to ascertain its value, whether it be urged by the 
infidel against the truths of Scripture, or by the 
Christian against the inferences of science. 

" Is it likely/' as Dr. Chalmers puts it, " says the 
infidel, that God would send His eternal Son to die 
for the puny occupiers of so insignificant a province 
in the mighty field of his creation ? Are we the be- 
fitting objects of so great and so signal an inter- 
position ? Does not the largeness of that field which 
Astronomy lays open to the view of modern science, 
throw a suspicion over the truth of gospel history ? 
and how shall we reconcile the greatness of that 
wonderful movement which was made in heaven for 
the redemption of fallen man, with the comparative 
meanness and obscurity of our species ?" 

In meeting this astronomical objection, Dr. Chal- 
mers states that it consists of an assertion, which he 
denies, that Christianity was established for the 
exclusive benefit of our minute and solitary world, 
and of an inference or argument, that God would not 
lavish " such a quantity of attention on so insignifi- 
cant a field." In denying the assertion, and main- 
taining that the inhabitants of other worlds may not 
have required a Saviour, Dr. Chalmers has obviously 
cut the knot of the difficulty rather than untied it. 
The assertion of the infidel, and the assertion of the 
divine, mutually destroy each other. The assertion 
of the infidel, not his inference, has been maintained 



142 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX, 

by some Christians themselves, and is a difficulty 
which ought not to have perplexed them. The 
assertion of the divine, on the contrary, is one which 
very few Christians will admit, and one which is 
opposed to the very system of analogy, which guides 
us in proving a plurality of worlds. If we argue 
that Jupiter, a planet with moons, must be inhabited 
because the Earth which has a moon is inhabited, is 
not the infidel or the Christian entitled to say, that 
since the inhabitants of the Earth have sinned and 
required a Saviour, the inhabitants of Jupiter may 
also have sinned, and required a Saviour ? To 
maintain the contrary opinion is not only against 
analogy, but it is a hazardous position for a divine to 
take when he maintains it to be probable that there 
are intellectual creatures occupying a world of matter, 
and subject to material laws, and yet exempt from 
sin, and consequently from suffering and death. A 
proposition so extraordinary we cannot venture to 
affirm. If it be true, the difficulty of the sceptic and 
the Christian is at once removed, because there can 
be no need of a Saviour ; and we are driven to the 
extravagant conclusion, that the inhabitants of all 
the planets but our own are sinless and immortal 
beings that never broke the Divine law, and are en- 
joying that perfect felicity which is reserved only for 
a few of the less favoured occupants of the Earth. 
Thus chained to a planet the lowest and most unfor- 
tunate in the universe, the philosopher, with all his 



CHAP. IX RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 343 

analogies broken down, may justly renounce his faith 
in a plurality of worlds, and rejoice in the more 
limited but safer creed of the anti-pluralist author 
who makes the Earth the only world in the universe, 
and the special object of God's paternal care. 

We must not, however, permit our readers to come 
to such a painful conclusion. Men of lofty minds 
and of undoubted piety have regarded the existence 
of moral evil as a necessary part of the general scheme 
of the universe, and consequently as affecting all its 
rational inhabitants — the race of Adam on our own 
globe, and the races, perchance, more glorious than ours 
in the planets around us, and in the remotest system in 
space. When on the eve of learning the truth of his 
opinions, the illustrious Huygens did not hesitate to 
affirm, that it would be absurd to suppose that all 
things were made otherwise than God willed, and 
knew would happen ; and that if we had lived in 
continual peace, and with an abundant supply of all 
the good things of this life, there would have been 
neither art nor science, and the human race would 
soon have lived like the brutes that perish. And 
with these views he comes to the conclusion, that 
the inhabitants of the other planets must be en- 
dowed with the same vices and virtues as man, 
because without such vices and virtues they would 
be far more degraded than the occupants of the 
Earth. 

One of the most profound thinkers and elegant 



144 MOKE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX. 

writers of the present day 1 has viewed this subject 
from a loftier eminence. " From the revealed re- 
cord/' he says, " we learn that the dynasty of man in 
the mixed state and character, is not the final one, 
but that there is to be yet another creation, or more 
properly re-creation, known theologically as the re- 
surrection, which shall be connected in its physical 
components by bonds of mysterious paternity, with 
the dynasty which now reigns, and be bound to it 
mentally by the chain of identity, conscious and 
actual ; but which in all that constitutes superiority, 
shall be as vastly its superior as the dynasty of 
responsible man is superior to even the lowest of the 
preliminary dynasties. We are further taught, that 
at the commencement of this last of the dynasties, 
there will be a re-creation, of not only elevated, but also 
of degraded beings — a re-creation of the lost. We are 
taught yet farther, that though the present dynasty be 
that of a lapsed race, which at their first introduction 
were placed on higher ground than that on which 
they now stand, and sank by their own act, it was 
yet part of the original design, from the beginning of 
all things, that they should occupy the existing plat- 
form ; and that redemption is thus no after-thought, 
rendered necessary by the fall, but, on the contrary, 
part of a general scheme, for which provision has 
been made from the beginning ; so that the divine 
man, through whom the work of restoration has beer 

1 Mr. Hugh Miller, Footprints of the Creator, pp. 301-303. 



CHAP. IX. RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 145 

effected, was in reality, in reference to the purposes 
of the Eternal, what He is designated in the remark- 
able text, ' the Lamb shin from the foundations of the 
world! Slain from the foundations of the world ! 
Could the assertors of the stony science ask for 
language more express ? By piecing the two records 
together — that revealed in Scripture, and that re- 
vealed in the rocks — records which, however widely 
geologists may mistake the one, or commentators 
misunderstand the other, have emanated from the 
same great author, we learn that in slow and solemn 
majesty has period succeeded period, each in suc- 
cession ushering in a higher and yet higher scene of 
existence — that fish, reptiles, mammiferous quadru- 
peds, have reigned in turn, — that responsible man, 
' made in the image of God/ and with dominion over 
all creatures, ultimately entered into a world ripened 
for his reception ; but farther, that this passing scene, 
in which he forms the prominent figure, is not the 
final one in the long series, but merely the last of the 
preliminary scenes ; and that that period to which 
the bygone ages, incalculable in amount, with all 
their well-proportioned gradations of being, form the 
imposing vestibule^ shall have perfection for its oc- 
cupant, and eternity for its duration. I know not 
how it may appear to others ; but for my own part, I 
cannot avoid thinking that there would be a lack of 
proportion in the series of being, were the period of 
perfect and glorified humanity abruptly connected, 



146 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX. 

ivithout the introduction of an intermediate creation 
of responsible imperfection, with that of the dying, 
irresponsible brute. That scene of things in which 
God became man, and suffered, seems, as it no doubt 
is, a necessary link in the chain/' 

At this startling result, our author finds himself 
on the confines of a mystery which man has " vainly 
aspired to comprehend." " I have/' says he, " no new 
reading of the enigma to offer. I know not why 
it is that moral evil exists in the universe of the All- 
wise and the all-powerful ; nor through what occult 
law of Deity it is that c perfection should come through 
suffering/" In the darkness of this mystery the best 
and the brightest spirits are involved ; and our in- 
ability to fathom its depth we willingly acknowledge. 
But there are difficulties, which though we cannot 
solve them for others, we may solve for ourselves. 
An inferior intellect may disencumber itself of an 
incubus, which a superior one may be doomed for 
ever to bear. And as the physician, when he cannot 
achieve a cure, considers himself fortunate when he 
finds an anodyne, so the Spectre of Moral Evil may 
haunt the philosopher when the peasant has suc- 
ceeded in exorcising it. 

To exhibit the Divine attributes, and to display 
the Divine glory to an intellectual and immortal 
race, must have been the purpose for which a ma- 
terial universe was created. In his physical frame 
Man is necessarily subject to physical laws. The 



CHAP. IX. RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 147 

law of gravity " cannot cease as he goes by ;" — and 
finite in his nature, and fallible in his reason, he can 
but feebly defend himself against the ferocity of 
animal life, the power of the elements, or the poison 
that may mingle in his cup. His high reason does 
not, in many emergencies, compensate for his inferior 
instinct. He is therefore helplessly exposed to suf- 
fering and death. The instincts of self-preservation 
and of parental affection give a magnitude and in- 
terest to whatever affects the safety and happiness of 
himself and his offspring. He is thus placed in 
antagonism to his fellow-sufferers, and in the collision 
of interests and feelings, laws human and Divine are 
broken. Nor is this result less conformable to what 
we have regarded as the object and end of creation. 
In order to glorify God by a knowledge of His attri- 
butes, these attributes must be fully displayed. The 
power, and wisdom, and goodness of the Creator, are 
exhibited to us every day and every hour ; — they are 
proclaimed in the heavens ; — they are stamped on 
the earth ; — life, and the enjoyments of life, display 
them even to the dumb, the deaf, and the blind. But 
in what region are we to descry the attributes of mercy, 
of justice, and of truth ? In the abodes of happiness 
and peace, the idea of Mercy can neither have an 
object nor a name. Justice can be understood only 
among the unjust, — and truth only among the un- 
truthful. The moral attributes of the most High 
can be comprehended and emblazoned only among 



/ 



148 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX. 

the cruel, the dishonest, and the false. His power, 
wisdom, and goodness, can be exhibited only in a 
material world, governed by the laws of matter ; and 
man in his material nature must be subject to their 
operation and control. Though thus controlled and 
thus suffering, we feel that all is good and wise, and 
under this feeble gleam of reason there is light enough 
to show us — if we are disposed to have it shown — 
that the Spectre of Moral Evil has been conjured up 
by ourselves : 

All Nature is but art, unknown to thee ; 
All chance direction, which thou canst not see ; 
All discord, harmony not understood ; 
All partial evil, universal good. — Pope. 

If we reject, then, the idea that the inhabitants of 
the planets do not require a Saviour, and maintain 
the more rational opinion, that they stand in the same 
moral relation to their Maker as the inhabitants of 
the Earth, we must seek for another solution of the 
difficulty which has embarrassed both the infidel and 
the Christian. How can we believe, says the timid 
Chi istian, that there can be inhabitants in the planets, 
when God had but one Son whom He could send to 
save them ? If we can give a satisfactory answer to 
this question, it may destroy the objections of the 
infidel, while it relieves the Christian from his 
anxieties. 

When, at the commencement of our era, the great 
sacrifice was made at Jerusalem, it was by the 



CHAP. IX. RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 149 

crucifixion of a man, or an angel, or a God. If our 
faith be that of the Arian or the Socinian, the scep- 
tical and the religious difficulty is at once removed :— 
a man or an angel may be again provided as a ran- 
som for the inhabitants of the planets. But if we 
believe, with the Christian Church, that the Son of 
God was required for the expiation of sin, the dif- 
ficulty presents itself in its most formidable shape. 

When our Saviour died, the influence of His death 
extended backwards, in the past, to millions who 
never heard His name, and forwards, in the future, 
to millions who will never hear it. Though it 
radiated but from the Holy City, it reached to the 
remotest lands, and affected every living race io the 
old and the new world. Distance in time and dis- 
tance in place did not diminish its healing virtue. 

" Though curious to compute, 
Archangels failed to cast the mighty sum." 

" Ungrasped by minds create/' it was a force which 
did not vary with any function of the distance. All- 
powerful over the thief on the cross, in contact with 
its divine source, it was in succeeding ages equally 
powerful over the Eed Indian of the west, and the 
wild Arab of the east. Their heavenly Father, by 
some process of mercy which we understand not, 
communicated to them its saving power. Emanating 
from the middle planet of the system, because, per- 
haps, it most required it, why may it not have ex- 



150 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX. 

tended to them all — to the planetary races in the 
past, when " the day of their redemption had drawn 
nigh f and to the planetary races in the future, when 
" their fulness of time shall come ?" 

" When stars and suns are dust beneath His throne, 
A thousand worlds so bought were bought too dear." 

But, to bring our argument more within the reach 
of an ordinary understanding, let us suppose that our 
globe at the beginning of the Christian era had been 
broken in two, as the comet of Biela is supposed to 
have been in 1846, and that its two halves, the old 
world and the new, travelled together like a double 
star, or diverged into widely separate orbits. Would 
not both its fragments have shared in the beneficence 
of the cross, — the old world as liberally as the new, — 
the penitent on the shores of the Mississippi, as richly 
as the pilgrim on the banks of the Jordan ? If the 
rays, then, " of the Sun of righteousness, with healing 
on His wings," could have shot across the void 
between our European and American worlds thus 
physically dissevered, may not all the planets, the 
worlds made by our Saviour himself, formed out of 
the same material elements, and basking under the 
same beneficent sun, be equal participators in His 
heavenly gift ? 

Should this view of the subject prove unsatisfac- 
tory to the anxious inquirer, we may suggest for his 
consideration another sentiment, even though we 



CHAP. IX, RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 151 

ourselves may not admit it into our. creed. If one 
man can expiate the crime of another by a punish- 
ment short of death, he may perform the same 
generous deed for a thousand. Should such a noble 
martyr consent even to give his life for his friend, by 
suffering a death from which science could revive 
him, he might expiate the crimes of thousands of his 
race. May not the Divine nature, which can neither 
suffer nor die, and which in our planet, once only, 
clothed itself in humanity, resume elsewhere a 
physical form, and expiate the guilt of unnumbered 
worlds ? 

In his zeal to overthrow the objection of the in- 
fidel, Dr. Chalmers has, we think, subjected it to a 
species of unnecessary torture. When the infidel 
thinks it unlikely " that God would send His eternal 
Son to die for the puny occupants of so insignificant 
a province of His creation," he does not mean that 
God cannot and does not take care "of the insig- 
nificant province" of the earth, because He has so 
many other nobler planetary kingdoms to govern. 
He means only that the mission of God's own eternal 
Son was too great a gift to the earth, and therefore 
one not likely to be given. The objection, indeed, 
which Dr. Chalmers puts into the mouth of the in- 
fidel is, in truth, an objection felt by the Christian ; 
and the acute author of the Essay Of a Plurality of 
Worlds, seeing this mistake, actually treats it " not 
as an objection urged by an opponent of religion, but 



152 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX. 

rather as a difficulty felt by a friend of religion." He 
considers it as a difficulty bearing on natural religion, 
and in this aspect he accepts of it as a difficulty, 
discusses its importance, and regards Dr. Chalmers's 
reply to it as " well fitted to remove the scruples to 
which it is especially addressed." The difficulty is 
thus put by the anonymous author we have referred 
to:— 

" Among the thoughts which it was stated natu- 
rally arose in men's minds when the telescope re- 
vealed to them an innumerable multitude of worlds 
besides the one we inhabit was this : — that the Gover- 
nor of the Universe, who has so many worlds under 
His management, cannot he conceived as bestowing 
upon this earth, and its various tribes of inhabitants, 
that care ivhich, till then, natural religion had taught 
men that He does employ to secure to man the posses- 
sion and use of his faculties of mind and body, and 
to all animals the requisites of animal existence and 
animal enjoyment And upon this Chalmers re- 
marks, that just about the time when science gave 
rise to the suggestion of this difficulty, she also gave 
occasion to a remarkable reply to it. Just about the 
same time that the invention of the telescope shewed 
that there were innumerable worlds which might 
have inhabitants requiring the Creators care as 
much as the tribes of this earth do, the invention of 
the microscope shewed that there were in this world 
innumerable tribes of animals which had been all 



CHAP. IX. KELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 153 

along enjoying the benefit of the Creator's care as 
much as those kinds with which man had been fami- 
liar from the beginning. The telescope suggested 
that there might be dwellers in Jupiter or in Saturn, 
of great size and unknown structure, who must share 
with us the preserving care of God. The microscope 
shewed that there had been close to us, inhabiting 
minute crevices and crannies, peopling the leaves of 
plants and the bodies of other animals, animalcules 
of a minuteness hitherto unguessed, and of a struc- 
ture hitherto unknown, who had been always sharers 
with us in God's preserving care. The telescope 
brought into view worlds as numerous as the drops 
of w 7 ater which make up the ocean ; the microscope 
brought into view a world in every drop of w T ater. 
Infinity in one direction was balanced by infinity in 
the other. The doubts which man might feel as to 
what God would do, were balanced by certainties 
which they discovered as to what He had always been 
doing. His care and goodness could not be supposed 
to be exhausted by the hitherto known population of 
the Earth, for it was proved they had hitherto been 
confined to that population. The discovery of neiv 
worlds at vast distances from us was accompanied by 
the discovery of new worlds close to us, even in the 
very substances with which we were best acquainted, 
and was thus rendered ineffective to disturb the belief 
of those ivho had regarded the world as having God 
for its Governor/' 



154 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX. 

The difficulties, or " scruples/' so distinctly stated 
in the preceding extract, whether we view them as 
an objection urged by an opponent of religion, as Dr. 
Chalmers does, or as a difficulty felt by the Christian, 
have, in our opinion, no existence ; and, if they had, 
we consider the discoveries of the microscope as hav- 
ing no tendency whatever to remove them. It is a 
singular doctrine to maintain, that "the truths of 
natural religion" were ever exposed to danger by the 
discoveries of the telescope, or that astronomical 
truth ever excited the " doubts or difficulties," stated 
by our author, either in the minds of Theists or 
Christians of the most ordinary capacity. We have 
never read any reputable works containing such 
doubts, nor listened to any conversations in which 
they were the subject of discussion. Amid the de- 
structive convulsions of the physical world, even 
pious minds may have for an instant questioned the 
superintending providence of God. In the midst of 
famine, or pestilence, or war, they may have stood 
horror-struck at the scene. In the triumphs of fraud, 
oppression, and injustice, over honesty, and liberty, 
and law, Faith may have wavered, and Hope de- 
spaired ; but in no condition, either of the physical 
or the moral world, does the mind question the 
Power of its Maker. The omnipotence of the 
Creator, and the exertion of it in every corner of 
space, — His care over the falling sparrow, and His 
guidance of the gigantic planet, are the earliest of 



CHAP. IX. RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 155 

our acquired truths, and the very first that observa- 
tion and experience confirm. "When Eeason gives 
wisdom to our conceptions, omnipotence is the grand 
truth which they inculcate. Whatever the eye sees, 
or the ear hears, or the fingers touch, — every motion 
of our body, every function it performs, every struc- 
ture in its fabric, impresses on the mind, and fixes 
in the heart the conviction, that the Creator is all- 
powerful as well as all-wise. Omnipotence, in short, 
is the only attribute of God which is universally 
appreciated, which scepticism never unsettles, and 
which we believe as firmly when under the influence 
of our corrupt passions, as when we are looking 
devoutly to heaven. All the other attributes of God 
are inferences. His omnipresence, His omniscience, 
His justice, mercy, and truth, are the deductions of 
reason, and, however true and demonstrable, they 
exercise little influence over the mind ; but the attri- 
bute of omnipotence predominates over them all, and 
no mind responsive to its power will ever be disturbed 
by the ideas which it suggests of infinity of time, 
infinity of space, and infinity of life. 

Is it conceivable that a Theist or a Christian of 
the smallest mental power could suppose that there 
are degrees of omnipotence, and imagine that the 
Almighty might be prevented, by the many worlds 
under His management, from taking care of the 
Earth and its inhabitants ? If that Being who has 
made the living world which we see, can make 



156 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. U. 

millions of worlds, the same power which takes 
such care of its inhabitants that not a hair of their 
head can fall to the ground without His knowledge, 
can equally embrace in His capacious affections, 
and clasp in " the everlasting arms/' all the families 
of the universe. 

But even if we admit that such imperfect notions 
of omnipotence have been entertained, we deny that 
the discoveries of the microscope have the slightest 
tendency to correct them. Without alleging, as we 
might well do, that minds cherishing such notions of 
the Deity are incapable of appreciating the great 
truths, that there are " new worlds close to us ;" that 
there is " a world in every drop of water ;" and that 
" these worlds are as numerous as the drops in the 
ocean/' we maintain that minds of the highest cast 
view the microscopic worlds as creations of an entirely 
different order from those disclosed by the telescope, 
and that such minds can never reason from animal- 
cular to intellectual life. We admit, that the very 
same care which is required to preserve even an atom 
of invisible life, is necessary to maintain the gigantic 
forms of the elephant or the mammoth ; but ordinary 
minds, and those who think that their Maker may 
have too much to do, cannot comprehend, and there- 
fore cannot receive, the doctrine that God takes care 
of mites and mosquitoes, and the other denizens of 
the microcosm at their feet, — of animalcules which 
they swallow in myriads at every act of deglutition, 



CHAP. IX. KEL1GI0US DIFFICULTIES. 157 

— which they suffocate in millions by every breath 
they draw, — and which, at every step, they trample 
relentlessly under their feet. 

The religious difficulty has been presented in an- 
other form by the author of the Essay Of a Plurality 
of Worlds, but in a form so unintelligible to us ; that 
we acknowledge our inability to comprehend it. Con- 
sidering Man as an intellectual, moral, and religious 
creature, and having a progressive history in the de- 
velopment of these different conditions or privileges, 
as our author calls them, he sees a great difficulty in 
supposing that intellectual and responsible creatures 
analogous to man, can have a place in any of the 
other planets of our system. Viewing, he says, " the 
mode of existence of human species upon the earth 
as being a progressive existence, even in the intellec- 
tual powers and their results, necessarily fastens down 
our thoughts and our speculations to the earth, and 
makes us feel how visionary and gratuitous it is to 
assume any similar hind of existence in any region 
occupied by other beings than men ;" and he else- 
where asserts, " that if we will people other planets 
with creatures intelligent as man is intelligent, we 
must not only give to them the intelligence, but the 
intellectual history of the human species!' This as- 
sertion is supported by another assertion, " that the 
Earth and its human inhabitants are, as far as we 
yet know, in an especial manner the subject of God's 
care and government ;" and from these and other 



158 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX. 

assertions, in reference to man being under the moral 
government of God, and to the Earth being the 
theatre of the scheme of redemption, he comes to the 
incomprehensible conclusion, that man's nature and 
place is unique, and incapable of repetition in the 
scheme of the universe ! 

In order to test the accuracy of these assertions, 
and to discover what bearing they have upon the 
doctrine of a plurality of worlds, we must ascertain 
what has been, and what now is, the progressive his- 
tory of man, as an intellectual, moral, and religious 
creature ; and in what age, and in what regions of 
the globe it has presented, or does now present, that 
unity of character and position which is incapable of 
repetition in the scheme of the universe. 

The history of the human species is the history 
of a variety of races in every stage of civilisation 
and barbarism, the great majority of which have 
neither an intellectual, nor a moral, nor a religious 
progressive history. Progression has not been the 
character of the history of man. Without alluding 
to his primeval fall from his high estate, we have 
only to cast our eye over the globe, and look at the 
intellectual, moral, and religious catastrophes which 
it presents to us, — at ages of light and darkness, — at 
alternations of progress and decline, — at the highest 
civilisation sinking into the lowest barbarism. Mark 
those eastern lands, now involved in darkness, from 
which the beams of knowledge first radiated on man- 



CHAP. IX. RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 159 

kind. Study the extinction of morality in many 
regions of the earth where its great lessons were first 
taught by our Saviour and His apostles ; and above 
all, ponder over the total suppression of the Chris- 
tian faith in European communities, where it has 
been displaced by a religion whose doctrines were 
preached by conquest, and whose decalogue was 
dictated by the sword. 

May we not ask, then, which of these ever-chang- 
ing conditions of humanity is that unique condition 
which cannot be repeated in the scheme of the uni- 
verse ? If it is the intellectual, moral, and religious 
race which is typified by Newton, and Shakespeare, 
and Milton, why may it not be the lowest in the scale 
of existence in some glorious planet, where the under- 
standing, and the affections, and the imagination are 
to rise into higher forms of science, of poetry, and of 
philanthropy ? Why may not the red Indian, the 
black negro, and the white slave, be the condition of 
intelligence in another sphere, — to be elevated to a 
nobler type of reason, and to a happier and a holier 
lot ? And why may there not be an intermediate 
race between that of man and the angelic beings of 
Scripture, where human reason shall pass into the 
highest form of created mind, and human affections 
into their noblest development ? 

It is strange, and hardly credible, that the writer, 
whose opinion we are considering, should think it 
necessary that the planets, if inhabited, should be 



160 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX. 

occupied by beings like man. Huygens, Bentley, 
Laplace, Isaac Taylor, Sir H. Davy, and Chalmers, 
have taken a different and a spunder view of the 
subject. The diversity in the races of man,— the 
immense and beautiful variety of forms and na- 
tures in the world of instinct, — and the countless 
beauties and differences in the structures and pro- 
perties of vegetable and mineral bodies, whether of 
the ancient or the present earth, all concur in satis- 
fying us that there will be the same diversity in the 
occupants and in the productions of the planetary 
regions. — Why may not the intelligence of the 
spheres be ordained for the study of regions and 
objects, unstudied and unknown on earth ? Why 
may not labour have a better commission than to 
earn its bread by the sweat of its brow ? Why may 
it not pluck its loaf from the bread-fruit tree, or 
gather its manna from the ground, or draw its wine 
from the bleeding vessels of the vine, or inhale its 
anodyne breath from the paradise gas of its atmo- 
sphere ? 

But whatever races be in the celestial spheres, we 
feel sure that there must be one, among whom there 
are no man-eaters — no parent-slayers — no widow- 
burners — no infant-killers — no heroes with red hands 
— no sovereigns with bloody hearts — no corrupt le- 
gislators, and no statesmen who, by leaving the 
people untaught, educate them for the scaffold. In 
the decalogue of that community will stand pre- 



CHAP. IX. RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 161 

eminent, in letters of burnished gold, the highest of 
all social obligations — 

THOU SHALT NOT KILL, 

— neither for territory, for fame, for lucre, nor for 
crime, — neither for food, nor for raiment, nor for 
pleasure. The lovely forms of life, and sensation, 
and instinct, so delicately fashioned by the Master 
hand, shall no longer be destroyed and trodden under 
foot, but be objects of unceasing love and admiration, 
— the study of the philosopher, the theme of the 
poet, and the auxiliaries and companions of man. 

The difficulties we have been considering, in so far 
as they are of a religious character, have been very 
unwisely introduced into the question of a plurality 
of worlds. They have, indeed, no real connexion 
with it. Before the advent of our Saviour, such 
difficulties could not have been started ; and had it 
been previously an article of faith that Jupiter was 
inhabited, the appearance on Earth of a Eedeemer 
would not have interfered with it. We are not 
entitled to remonstrate with the sceptic, but we ven- 
ture to doubt the soundness of that philosopher's 
judgment, who thinks that the truths of natural 
religion are affected by a belief in planetary races, 
and the reality of that Christian's faith who con- 
siders it to be endangered by the conviction that 
there are other worlds than his own. 1 

1 A very able work, by the Rev. Dr Edward Nares, was published in 1801, entitled, 
" E7s &io$, E7s Murirns, or an attempt to shew how far the Philosophical notion 
L 



162 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. IX. 

of a Plurality of Worlds is consistent or not so with the language of the Holy 
Scriptures." He endeavours to shew that the words Olxovpivvi — Ovgocvog — 
Kocrftos, — Mundus, Orbis, &c, refer to a universe of worlds, and that the atone- 
ment was made for the creature generally. The same opinion is maintained by 
Bishop Porteous, who thinks it evident from Scripture, as well as analogy, that we 
are not the only creatures in the universe interested in the sacrifice of our Re- 
deemer. (See his Works, vol. iii. p. 70.) 

Dr. Andrew Fuller, in his work entitled, The Gospel its own Witness, has devoted 
a whole chapter of forty pages, to shew " The consistency of the Scripture 
doctrine of Redemption with the modern opinion of the Magnitude of Creation," — 
that is, with the doctrine of a plurality of worlds, and systems of worlds. He is of 
opinion " that the credibility of the Redemption is not weakened by this doctrine, 
but, on the contrary, is, in many respects, strengthened and aggrandized." We re- 
commend this work to the careful perusal of those who feel any difficulty on tL 
subject, and also a Lecture by the late Rev. S. Noble, entitled, " The Astronom, 
cal Doctrine of a Plurality of Worlds in perfect harmony with the True Christia 
Eeligiou." 



OHAPTEE X. 

SINGLE STARS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 

If we suppose ourselves placed successively on 
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, the 
Sun will appear smaller and smaller, and on Nep- 
tune it will still have a round and distinctly defined 
disc. At a greater distance beyond our system the 
disc of the Sun could be seen only through a teles- 
cope, and at that distance all the planets, except 
Jupiter and Saturn, will have disappeared. At 
greater distances still these two planets will vanish 
in succession, and before we have crossed the im- 
mense void which lies between our system and the 
nearest system of the stars, our Sun will be seen as 
a single star twinkling in the sky. All his planets, 
primary and secondary, and all his comets, will then 
have disappeared. 

Hence we are led to believe, with Huygens, that 
the fixed stars, three thousand in number, as seen by 
the naked eye, and about one hundred million as seen 
by the telescope, are the suns of other systems, whose 
planets are invisible from their distance. As no 



164 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. X. 

change of place has been observed in single fixed 
stars, excepting that which is common to them all, 
and which arises from the motion of our system, we 
are entitled to consider these stars as the centres of 
systems like our own : To suppose them without 
planets, and to be merely globes of light and heat, 
would be contrary to analogy as well as to reason. 
We know that there is one star (our sun) in the 
universe surrounded by planets, and one of these 
planets inhabited ; and when we see another single 
star equal, if not greater in brilliancy, we are entitled 
to regard it as the centre of a system, and that system 
with at least one inhabited planet. This conclusion 
is rendered more probable by estimates which have 
been made of the comparative brightness and pro- 
bable magnitude of some of the single fixed stars. 1 

1 With the view of shewing that analogy does not lead us to believe that stars, 
considered as suns, are surrounded with planets, the author of the Essay Of a Plu- 
rality of Worlds, has, in a note, quoted in the following manner, a passage from 
Humboldt, as confirming his opinion. 

" Humboldt," says he, '* regards the force of analogy as teriding in the opposite 
direction. • After all,' he asks, (Cosmos III. 373,) ' is the assumption of satellites 
to the fixed stars so absolutely necessary ? If we were to begin from the outer 
planets, Jupiter, &c, analogy might seem to require that all planets have satellites. 
But yet this is not true, for Mars, Venus, and Mercury have no satellites, to 
which we may further add the twenty-three planetoids. In this case there is a much 
greater number of bodies which have not satellites than which have them." — P. 161, 
note. 

There is certainly some singular confusion of ideas either in Humboldt or his 
commentator, or in both. Nobody ever maintained that the stars have satellites. 
They are supposed only to have planets, and if any person should maintain that 
these primary planets have satellites, the observation of Humboldt would be quite 
applicable, because analogy tells us that it is as likely that they have no satellites 
as that they have them, or rather, as in the Solar system, that some may have 
satellites, and others not. The author of the Essay, however, means by satellites 
not moons, but primary planets, and he has certainly made an extraordinary 
blunder, when he infers that there may be no planets round the star suns, because 
there are planets without satellites. If there had not been in the Solar system a 



CHAP. X. SINGLE STARS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 165 

These estimates have been obtained from measures 
of the brightness and distance of a small number of 
stars. The distance of a star is obtained from what 
is called its Parallax, — namely, its change of place 
in the heavens when seen from the two most distant 
points of the earth's orbit, or, what is the same thing, 
the angle subtended at the star by lines drawn from it 
to the two most distant points of the earth's orbit, 
which are separated by a length of 190 millions of 
miles. The following are almost the only correct 
measures of parallax which have been obtained by 
the fine instruments, and the accurate observations of 
modern astronomers. 



a, Centauri, 


0"-913 Henderson and Maclear. 


61 Cygni, 


0"-374 Bessel. 


a Lyra, 


0"-207 Peters. 


Sirius, 


0"-230 Henderson. 


Arcturas, , 


0"-127 Peters. 


Pole Star, 


0"-106 Peters. 


Capella, 


0"046 Peters. 



The star a Centauri, which is the nearest to our 
system, has been found to be about two-and-a-half 
times brighter than our Sun, and the star Sirius, ths 
brightest in the heavens, has been found to be four 
times brighter than a Centauri ; but the distance of 
Sirius is four times greater than that of a Centauri, 
and therefore the intrinsic brightness of Sirius is 
sixty-three times greater than that of our Sun. A 
luminary like this, so resplendent in its brightness, 

single satellite, analogy could never have led us to conclude that there were no 
primary planets round the stars. 



166 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. X. 

and so gigantic, doubtless, in its magnitude, was 
surely not planted in space to shed its light and its 
heat upon nothing. The star Capella, too, a star ot 
the first magnitude, is twenty times more remote than 
a Centauri, and must, like Sirius, be a sun of enor- 
mous size. Can we doubt, then, that every single 
star, shining by its own native light, is the centre of 
a planetary system like our own, the lamp that lights, 
the stove that heats, and the power that guides in 
their orbits inhabited worlds like our own ? 

A great number of the fixed stars, some of which 
are of the first magnitude, like Castor, appear double 
when seen through the fine telescopes of modern 
times, and, from observations made at different 
dates, one of the stars has been found to revolve 
round the other, and to form what is called a Bin- 
ary System; — that is, a system in which one sun 
with its system of planets revolves round another 
sun with its system of planets, or rather round the 
centre of gravity of both. The two sans of course 
are only seen, owing to the great distance of their 
respective systems from us ; but no person can be- 
lieve that two suns could be placed in the heavens 
for no other purpose than to revolve round their com- 
mon centre of gravity. 

The orbits of no fewer than thirteen double stars, 
or binary systems, first discovered by Sir William 
Herschel, have been calculated by Sir John Herschel, 
Savary, Madler, Admiral Smyth, Hind, Encke, and 



CHAP. X. SINGLE STABS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 167 

Jacob, and there can be no doubt that the Newtonian 
law of gravity extends to these bodies. The periods 
of these systems extend from 31^ years, which is that 
of f Herculis, to 737 years, which is that of a Coronce 
b, both of which were calculated by Madler ; but the 
most interesting binary system is y Virginis, whose 
revolution, as computed by Sir John Herschel, is 182 
years. The two stars which compose it are nearly 
equal, and, according to Struve, slightly variable, being 
sometimes equal in brightness, and sometimes unequal. 
Dr. Bradley had observed, in 1718, the apparent 
direction of the line joining the two stars. In 1780, 
Sir William Herschel observed their distance to be 
5"*7, which regularly diminished till 1836, when the 
two appeared perfectly round, like a single star seen 
by the finest telescopes. After 1836 the stars sepa- 
rated, and their distance is now more than 2". The 
change in their angular motion, that is, in the direc- 
tion of the line joining them, has been equally 
remarkable, and was as follows : — 



In 1783, 


. . v 


per 


annum 


1830, 


5° 






1834, 


20* 




... 


1835, 


40° 






1836, 


70' 







The star of the shortest period, namely, %Herculis, 
has performed two revolutions since it was first dis- 
covered, and the small star has been twice completely 
eclipsed by the large one. Other three double stars, 
17 Coronce, f Cancri, and f Ursce Majoris, have per- 



168 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. X. 

formed more than one complete revolution in their 
orbits, and there can be no doubt that these motions 
are the result of centripetal forces varying inversely 
as the square of the distance. " We have the same 
evidence, indeed/' says Sir John Herschel, " of their 
motions about each other that we have of those of 
Uranus and Neptune about the Sun ; and the corres- 
pondence of their calculated and observed places in 
such very elongated ellipses must be admitted to 
carry with it proof of the prevalence of the Newtonian 
law of gravity in their systems, of the very same na- 
ture and agency as that of the calculated and ob- 
served places of comets round the central body of 
our own." 

In reference to systems like these, the argument 
in favour of their being surrounded with inhabited 
planets, is stronger than in the case of single systems. 
We have in this case a decided visible movement of 
one of the stars round the other : We have also ellip- 
tical orbits described by the same law of force which 
guides our own Earth and the other planets in the 
Solar system ; and though, upon the same grounds 
which led us to agree with Sir William Herschel in 
thinking that our own Sun may be inhabited, we may 
believe the two suns of binary systems to be inhabited, 
yet it is more reasonable and consistent with analogy 
to believe that each of them is accompanied, as Sir 
John Herschel remarks, "with its train of planets and 
their satellites, closely shrouded from our view by the 



CHAP. X. SINGLE STARS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 169 

splendour of their respective suns, and crowded into 
a space bearing hardly a greater proportion to the 
enormous interval which separates them than the dis- 
tances of the satellites of our planets from their pri- 
maries bear to their distances from the Sun himself. 
A less distinctly characterized subordination would 
be incompatible with the stability of their systems, 
and with the planetary nature of their orbits. Unless 
closely nestled under the protecting wing of their 
immediate superior, the sweep of their other sun, in 
its perihelion passage round their own, might carry 
them off, or whirl them into orbits utterly incom- 
patible with the conditions necessary for the existence 
of their inhabitants/' 1 

From the motion of our own system round a dis- 
tant centre, it is highly probable that our sun is one 
of a binary system, although its partner has not 
been discovered. If Madler s speculation is correct, 
our sun and the star Alcyone form a binary system, 
and therefore since our sun is attended with planets, 
and one of these inhabited, we are entitled by ana- 
logy to conclude that all other binary systems have 
planets at least round one of their suns, and that one 
of these planets is the seat of vegetable and animal 
life. 

The number of double stars, of multiple stars, and 
groups and clusters is very great ; but ages must 
elapse before astronomers can determine the relation 

1 Outlines of Astronomy, § 846. 



170 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. X. 

in which the stars that compose each system or 
group stand to one another. In the meantime we 
are compelled to draw the conclusion, that wherever 
there is a sun, a gigantic sphere, shining by its own 
light, and either fixed or moveable in space, there 
must be a planetary system, and wherever there is 
a planetary system, there must be life and intelli- 
gence. 

The number of fixed stars, even though more 
numerous than the atoms of sand on the sea shore, 
forms no argument to the instructed mind against 
their being occupied by living beings. When the 
philosopher, with his microscope, discovered that the 
polieschiefer of Bohemia, and chalk and solid marble, 
consisted almost wholly of the remains of animal life, 
the world stood aghast at the intelligence : — They 
were still more astonished at the statement that 
many thousands of millions of such infusorial animals 
could be counted in a cubic inch of their lifeless re- 
mains ; but their faith was more severely taxed when 
they learned that whole strata and hills were formed 
of these fossil skeletons. 1 In like manner we are at 
first startled with the deduction that the planets of 
our own system are the seats of intellectual life. 
We marvel still more at the announcement that the 
systems of the stars are planetary, and inhabited like 

1 Ehrenberg found that one cubic inch of the Bilin polieschiefer slate contains 
41,000 millions of these microscopic infusorial animals, called Galionella distans, 
and that a cubic inch o f the same material contains above one billion 750,000 
millions of distinct individuals of Galionella ferruginea. 



CHAP. X. SINGLE STARS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 171 

our own ; and our faltering reason utterly fails us 
when we are called upon to believe that even the 
nebulce must be surrendered to life and reason. 
Wherever there is matter there must be Life ; Life 
Physical to enjoy its beauties — Life Moral to worship 
its Maker, and Life Intellectual to proclaim His 
wisdom and His power. 



CHAPTER XL 

CLUSTERS OF STARS AND NEBULiE. 

Among the bodies of the sidereal universe, astro- 
nomers have from the earliest ages recognised the 
existence of clusters of stars and of nebulce. The 
Milky Way indicates by its name that it is of a 
nebular character ; but a nebula, properly so called, 
is a limited space of light, of various forms and vari- 
ous degrees of brightness in its different parts. Sir 
William Herschel, who was the first astronomer that 
observed this class of phenomena systematically, 
divided the bodies which compose it into six classes, 
namely, 

1. Clusters of stars, in which each star is distinctly 
seen. 

2. Resolvable Nebulas, or such as excite a suspicion 
that they consist of stars, and which a higher mag- 
nifying power may be expected to resolve into sepa- 
rate stars. 

3. Nebulce, properly so called, in which there is no 
appearance ivhatever of stars. 



CHAP. XI. CLUSTERS OF STARS AND NEBULA 173 

4 Planetary Nebulae, or such as resemble planets 
from their discs being round or slightly oval. 

5. Stellar Nebulae, or those in which the light is 
nearly collected into one point ; and 

6. Nebulous Stars, or luminous points, surrounded 
with an immense visible atmosphere. 

It is very obvious that the language used in the 
above classification, is intended to support the hypo- 
thesis that there is such a thing in the sidereal 
universe as real nebulous matter, or fire-mist, or star- 
dust, as it has been almost jocularly called, contra- 
distinguished from a nebulous mass of identically the 
same appearance which the telescope has resolved 
into separate stars. The phrases which we have put 
in italics are certainly incorrect, because any appear- 
ance, or any expectation of a nebula not being 
resolvable, is proved to have been erroneous the 
moment it is resolved. The classification of nebulae, 
therefore, sliould have J een, 1. Nebulae that the 
telescope had resolved ; and, 2. Nebulae that the 
telescope had not resolved. 

Sir William Herschel believed in the existence of 
purely nebulous matter, or star-dust, and in what has 
been called the theory of sidereal aggregation ; and 
since his time it has been made the basis of wild and 
extravagant speculations equally incompatible with 
physical and revealed truth. It is, therefore, of some 
importance that we should succeed in convincing the 
reader that the existence of nebulae not yet resolved, 



174 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XL 

is no proof of the existence of star-dust, and that we 
are entitled to conclude that such nebulas are clusters 
of stars, — that each star is the sun of a planetary sys- 
tem, and each planet the residence of life and reason. 
Each nebula, in short, corresponds with our hill of 
microscopic infusorial animals, — each system with a 
cubic inch of it's materials, and each planet with a 
cubic line. If we have seen with our own eyes in 
the microscope the individual animal — only the ten 
thousandth part of an inch in size, and if we have 
seen the hill which is an accumulation of them, need 
we wonder at nebulae being stars, — at stars being 
suns, — and at planets being inhabited ? 

As it is now an astronomical fact that nebulae, 
which Sir William Herschel, with his finest tele- 
scopes, could not resolve, and which had no appear- 
ance whatever of being resolvable, have been resolved 
into distinct stars by the magnificent reflectors of 
Lord Kosse, we are enabled without any hypothetical 
statements to place the question of the existence of 
star-dust or purely nebulous matter, in its proper 
aspect ; — that is, we can assign a satisfactory reason 
to the reader for considering every unresolved nebula 
in the heavens as a cluster of stars which is likely to 
be resolved by telescopes superior to those of Lord 
Kosse. 

For this purpose, let us suppose seven clusters of 
stars placed at seven different distances in space, all 
of which were regarded as nebulae before the inven- 



CHAP. XI. CLUSTEKS OF STARS AND NEBULA. 175 

tion of the telescope. When Galileo applied his little 
telescope to Nebula No. 1, or the nearest of the seven, 
he observed it to consist of separate stars so distinct 
that he could count them, and he concluded from 
their having no parallax, and being at an enormous 
distance, that each was a gigantic sun. Galileo tries 
in vain to resolve No. 2, which is at a greater distance, 
and therefore though he thought that a better tele- 
scope would resolve it and all the other five, they still 
remained as nebulae in the heavens. Sir Isaac New- 
ton, however, nearly a century later, applies his little 
reflecting telescope to No. 2, and succeeds in resolv- 
ing it, but though he fails in resolving the other five 
nebulas, he believes, on better evidence than Galileo, 
that they are clusters of stars. Hadley with his fine 
Gregorian reflector easily resolves No. 3 ; James 
Short, in like manner, resolves No. 4 ; Sir William 
Herschel No. 5 ; and Lord Kosse No. 6. Now all 
these astronomers, after the observation of Galileo, 
believed that the seven nebulas were clusters of stars, 
each of them with increasing evidence; and Lord 
Eosse, that No. 7 was a cluster on stronger evidence 
than the rest. Lord Bosse, however, fails in resolving 
No. 7 with his largest instrument, but be does not 
scruple to express his conviction, nay, he cannot help 
being convinced, that, with a telescope, even a little 
larger than his own, but certainly with one twice its 
size, which may be the work of another century, — 
the seventh nebula will also be resolved. The same 



176 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XI. 

reasoning which we have used for seven nebulas is 
applicable to seventy or seven hundred, or even seven 
thousand ; and the conclusion is inevitable, though 
the evidence of demonstration is wanting, that all 
nebulae are clusters of stars. 

There is another point of view from which we may 
regard this subject. Purely nebulous matter, such 
as that which composes comets' tails, and still more 
that which, in the form of the zodiacal light, is, 
without reason, called the sun's atmosphere, must 
consist of the minutest particles, so minute that they 
do not retard Yenus or Mercury while they pass 
through the so-called atmosphere of the sun, which 
is alleged to extend beyond their orbits. Now, if 
No. 6 was considered a nebula before it was resolved, 
it must have been regarded as consisting of minute 
particles of star-dust, whereas, the moment it was 
resolved, it consisted of separate suns, each of which 
was probably greater than our own. Is it possible that 
self-luminous star-dust, at such an infinite distance 
from us in space, and so rare as to be like a non- 
resisting medium, could send to our system a light 
as intense as that which is emitted by the same 
nebula considered as a cluster of suns ! If the 
resolved nebula No. 6, and the unresolved nebula 
No. 7, have the same appearance and the same in- 
tensity of light, is it not certain that the latter must 
have the same constitution as the former, that is, 
must consist of stars ? 



CHAP. XI. CLUSTEKS OF STARS AND NEBULAE. 177 

There is another aspect of this question, which, as 
it has not yet been the subject of discussion, may 
deserve the attention of astronomers. It is not only 
quite possible, but we think it is almost certain, that 
in the distant sidereal spaces there may be nebulae, 
which, though really clusters of stars, never can be 
resolved. Our hypothetical nebula, for example, No. 
7, may not only resist the telescopes of ages to come, 
but may be incapable of resolution by telescopes of 
infinite power and iyifinite perfection. Unless when 
a star is in the zenith, the rays by which we see it 
are bent and dispersed by the refraction of the at- 
mosphere, and as our atmosphere is not a homoge- 
neous medium, a star may be so infinitely minute 
from its distance, that though its light makes its way 
through ethereal space undisturbed in its journey of 
a thousand years, it may be so treated in its passage 
through our atmosphere that an image of it cannot 
be formed in the focus of a telescope, considered as 
absolutely perfect. An increase of magnifying power 
would only increase the indistinctness produced by 
the atmosphere. In the case of a single star thus 
acted upon, it would be invisible from the diffusion 
of its light, while in the case of clusters, the cluster 
would continue to appear a nebula, the diffused light 
of each star being mingled with that of its neigh- 
bours. 

The interesting discovery made by Lord Kosse of 
what is called spiral nebulce, where the nebulous 



178 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XI. 

matter may be considered as having been thrown off 
by some singular cause from the centre of the nebu- 
la, has been regarded as hostile to the opinion that 
such nebulse are composed of separate stars. An 
appearance which might be caused by motion, is cer- 
tainly no ground for believing that motion caused it. 
Various forms have been observed in nebulae. They 
are globular and oval, with all degrees of ellipticity, 
from a circle to a straight line ; and Sir John Her- 
schel remarks it as "a fact, connected in some very 
intimate manner with the dynamical condition of 
their subsistence/' that they are more difficult of re- 
solution than globular nebulae. Now these linear 
nebulae, which Sir John Herschel thinks are flat 
ellipsoids seen edgewise, though they may, by specu- 
lators in star-dust, be regarded as spheres thrown into 
their ellipsoidal state by a very rapid rotation round 
their lesser axis, yet they have no such origin, because 
they have been resolved into stars. In like manner 
the nebulas called annular, which have the form of 
rings, might be regarded by the same theorists as 
produced from a still more rapid rotation, which we 
know from the beautiful experiments of M. Plateau, 
will convert a sphere into a ring ; but that this is 
not their origin is proved by their consisting of stars. 
The beautiful nebula, for example, between /3 and 
7 Lyra, has the appearance of " a flat oval solid ring/' 
" The axes of the ellipse," according to Sir John 
Herschel, " are to each other in the proportion of 



CHAP. XL CLUSTERS OF STAES AND NEBULA. 179 

about 4 to 5, and the opening occupies about half, or 
rather more than half the diameter. The central 
vacuity is not quite dark, but is filled in with faint 
nebulae like a gauze stretched over a hoop. The 
principal telescopes of Lord Rosse resolve this object 
into excessively minute stars, and shew filaments of 
stars adhering to its edges." When this nebula was 
unresolved, and had the character of a ring nebula, 
which might be produced by the rapid motion of a 
nebular sphere round its axis, the star-dust philoso- 
pher would have considered its form as a proof that 
it could not consist of stars ; but now that it has 
been resolved, we are entitled to conclude that in ne- 
bulas, such as the spiral ones, where there is the appear- 
ance of motion, the spirals are not purely nebulous 
matter thrown off from the nucleus like water twirled 
from a mop, or by any spiral movement whatever. 

As the appearance of motion, therefore, in particu- 
lar nebulas, is no proof that they consist of purely 
nebulous matter composed of invisible particles, we 
are entitled to draw the conclusion that this large 
class of celestial bodies are clusters of stars at an im- 
mense distance from our own system, — that each of 
the stars of which they are composed is the sun or 
centre of a system of planets, and that these planets 
are inhabited, or if we follow a strict analogy, that 
at least one planet in each of these numberless sys- 
tems, is like our earth, the seat of vegetable, animal, 
and intellectual life. 



180 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XI. 

But independently of these considerations, we are 
entitled to ask if these nebulae are really globular 
and elliptical, and their lines of light really spiral. 
We assume that it is possible, nay, highly probable, 
that they are not. We are all familiar with the de- 
ceptive forms assumed by ill-defined and faintly 
illuminated surfaces, and with the disappearance or 
variation of such forms when we approach the 
object or see it better. The globular nebulae of Sir 
W. Herschel have disappeared as globes under the 
sharp vision of Lord Bosse's telescope, and the hypo- 
thesis, founded upon them, of star-dust condensing 
into suns has been exploded. The Dumb-bell nebula, 
too, of Sir John Herschel, has assumed a new shape 
when examined by Lord Eosse, and every cluster of 
stars and nebula in the heavens, and every form 
which they now present to the astronomer, either in 
their outline or on their surface, will, we doubt not, 
in another age, undergo the most complete metamor- 
phosis. In like manner may not the telescopes of 
the next century discover appendages to these spirals 
in certain nebulae, or so resolve them into stars that 
their spiral forms will disappear, and the wild specu- 
lations which they have suggested be treated with the 
contempt and ridicule which they merit. A hypothe- 
sis founded upon forms that are themselves hypothe- 
tical, cannot fail to bring astronomy into contempt. 

Before we quit the subject of nebulae, and purely 
nebulous matter, we must notice two points connected 



CHAP. XI. CLUSTERS OF STARS AND NEBULA. 181 

with the optical appearance of nebulae, which we 
think are strong arguments in favour of their being 
resolvable into stars. If a nebula consisted of phos- 
phorescent or self-luminous atoms of nebulous mat- 
ter, its light would be immensely inferior in bright- 
ness to that of the same nebula composed of suns 
which are provided with a luminous atmosphere for 
the very purpose of discharging a brilliant light. 
When we see, therefore, two nebulae of the very same 
brightness, and find by the telescope that one of them 
only is resolvable into stars, we can scarcely doubt 
that the other is similarly composed. We cannot 
conceive that a nebula of phosphorescent atoms could 
be visible at such enormous distances from our sys- 
tem. When a planetary nebula is equally bright in 
every part of its disc, like that which is a little to the 
south of /3 Ursce Majoris, and which resembles a flat 
disc, " presented to us in a plane precisely perpendi- 
cular to the visual ray/' it is impossible to regard it 
as nebulous matter in a state of aggregation. In 
like manner, all those nebulae, which have strange 
and irregular shapes, indicate the absence of any force 
of aggregation, and authorize us to regard them as 
clusters of stars. 



CHAPTER XII. 

GENERAL SUMMARY. 

The arguments for a plurality of worlds, contained 
in the preceding chapters, are so various, and have 
such different degrees of force, that different views of 
the subject will be taken by many who thoroughly 
believe in the general doctrine. We can easily un- 
derstand why some persons may believe that all the 
planets which have satellites are inhabited, while 
they deny the inhabitability of those that have none, 
and also of the Sun and the satellites themselves. 
There are individuals, too, though we doubt their 
faith in sidereal astronomy, who readily believe that 
the whole of our planetary system is the seat of life, 
while they are startled by the statement that every 
star in the heavens, and every point in a nebula which 
the most powerful telescope has not separated from 
its neighbour, is a sun surrounded by inhabited 
planets like our own ; and that immortal beings are 
swarming through universal space more numerous 
than drops of water in the ocean, or the grains of 
sand upon its shores. But if these persons really 
believe in the distances and magnitudes of the stars, 



CHAP. XII. GENERAL SUMMARY. 183 

and of the laws which govern the binary systems of 
double stars, they must find it equally, if not more 
difficult to comprehend, why innumerable suns and 
worlds fill the immensity of the universe, revolving 
round one another, and discharging their light and 
heat into space, without a plant to spring under their 
influence, without an animal to rejoice in their genial 
beams, and without the eye of reason to lift itself 
devoutly to its Creator. In peopling such worlds 
with life and intelligence, we assign the cause of their 
existence ; and when the mind is once alive to this 
great truth, it cannot fail to realize the grand combi- 
nation of infinity of life with infinity of matter. 

In support of these views, we have already alluded 
to the almost incredible fact, that there are in our 
own globe hills and strata miles in length, composed 
of the fossil remains of microscopic insects ; and we 
need scarcely remind the least informed of our readers, 
that the air which they breathe, the water which they 
drink, the food which they eat, the earth on which 
they tread, the ocean which encircles them, and the 
atmosphere above their heads, are swarming with 
universal life. Wherever we have seen matter we 
have seen life. Life was not made for matter, but 
matter for life; and in whatever spot we see its atoms, 
whether at our feet, or in the planets, or in the re- 
motest star, we may be sure that life is there — life to 
enjoy the light and heat of God's bounty— to study His 
works, to recognise His glory, and to bless His name. 



184 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XII. 

Those ungenial minds, or " Low Souls/' as the poet 
calls them, that can be brought to believe that the 
Earth is the only inhabited body in the universe, will 
have no difficulty in conceiving that it also might 
have been without inhabitants. Nay, if such minds 
are imbued with geological inferences, they must 
admit that for myriads of years the Earth was with- 
out inhabitants ; and hence we are led to the extra- 
ordinary result, that for myriads of years there was 
not an intelligent creature in the vast dominions of 
the universal King ; and that before the formation 
of the protozoic strata, there was neither a plant nor 
an animal throughout the infinity of space ! During 
this long period of universal death, when Nature 
herself was asleep, the Sun with his magnificent 
attendants, the planets with their faithful satellites, 
the stars in the binary systems, the Solar system itself, 
were performing their daily, their annual, and their 
secular movements, unseen, unheeded, and fulfilling 
no purpose that human reason can conceive, — lamps 
lighting nothing, — fires heating nothing, — waters 
quenching nothing, — clouds screening nothing, — 
breezes fanning nothing, — and everything around, 
mountain and valley, hill and dale, earth and ocean, 
all meaning nothing. 

The Stars 

Did wander darkling in the eternal space. 

To our apprehension, such a condition of the Earth, 



CHAP. XII. GENERAL SUMMARY. 185 

of the Solar system, and of the sidereal universe, 
would be the same as that of our own globe, if all its 
vessels of war and of commerce were traversing its 
seas, with empty cabins and freightless holds, — as if 
all the railways on its surface were in full activity 
without passengers and goods, — and all our machinery 
beating the air, and gnashing their iron teeth without 
work performed. A house without tenants, a city 
without citizens, present to our minds the same idea 
as a planet without life, and a universe without in- 
habitants. Why the house was built, why the city 
was founded, why the planet was made, and why the 
universe was created, it would be difficult even to 
conjecture. Equally great would be the difficulty 
were the planets shapeless lumps of matter poised in 
ether, and still and motionless as the grave : But 
when we consider them as chiselled spheres teeming 
with inorganic beauty, and in full mechanical activity, 
performing their appointed motions with such mi- 
raculous precision, that their days and their years 
never err a second of time in hundreds of centuries, 
the difficulty of believing them to be without life is, 
if possible, immeasurably increased. To conceive 
any one material globe, whether a gigantic clod 
slumbering in space, or a noble planet equipped like 
our own, and duly performing its appointed task, 
to have no living occupants, or not in a state of pre- 
paration to receive them, seems to us one of those 
notions which could be harboured only in an ill-edu- 



J 86 . MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XII. 

cated and ill-regulated inind, a mind without faith 
and without hope : But to conceive a whole universe 
of moving and revolving worlds in such a category, 
indicates, in our apprehension, a mind dead to feeling, 
and under the influence of that intellectual pride 
which the poet so justly denounces, — 

Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, 

Earth for whose use ? Pride answers, " 'Tis for mine : 

Seas roll to waft me, Suns to light me rise, — 

My footstool Earth, — my canopy the skies." * — Pope. 

But we have been mistaken in thinking that the 
universe was dead : It was but unborn, the perfect 
chrysalis from which the living butterfly was to 
spring. Protozoic forms arose at the Divine com- 
mand, — the infant plant, the simple mollusc, the 
noble fish, the still nobler quadruped, successively 
appeared, and Man, the image of his Maker, and the 
work of His hand, was invested with the sovereignty 
of the globe. The Earth, therefore, was made for 
man, matter for life ; and wherever another earth is 
seen, we are forced to the conviction that it too was 
made like ours for the use of an intellectual and 
immortal race. 

Although we have repeatedly alluded, in the pre- 
ceding pages, to the absurdity of supposing suns and 
planets to be made without any conceivable object, 
yet the argument may be presented in a more general 

1 Dr. Warton remarks on this passage, that it is the highest absurdity to think 
that the heavenly bodies were lighted up principally for our use. 



CHAP. XII. GENERAL SUMMARY. 187 

form. In all the works which are the result of 
human skill, the great object is to obtain a given 
effect by the smallest expenditure of labour and of 
materials. The genius of the artist is less strikingly 
shewn in producing a new effect, than in producing 
one well known, with economy of time, of work, and 
of material. Everything that is not necessary to the 
final effect of a process, or of a machine, is labour in 
vain, — a species of work in which man never willingly 
indulges. Even where labour is not hallowed by the 
sweat of the brow, — where it does not earn bread, or 
is not exhausted in the great structures of civilisa- 
tion, it is never labour in vain. Every act of the 
mind, and every motion of the hand which it 
guides, is a step in the great march of social progress, 
however frivolous its Avork may seem, and how- 
ever useless its immediate result. The toy for the 
child, the telescope for the sage, the locomotive for 
the railway, the steam-ship for the ocean, are equally, 
though in different degrees, the result of useful occu- 
pation. In the world of instinct there is the same 
economy of skill and labour, — the spider and the bee, 
the ant and the beaver, are spendthrifts neither of time 
nor of toil ; and in all the works of the Divine artist 
around us, — in all the laws of matter and of motion, 
— in the frame of man and of animals, of plants and 
of inorganic nature, the economy of power is univer- 
sally displayed. Nothing is made in vain, — nothing 
by a complex process ivliich can be made by a simple 



188 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XII. 

one ; and it has often been remarked by the most 
diligent students of the living world, that the infinite 
wisdom of the Creator is more strikingly displayed 
in the economy than in the manifestation of power. 

With such truths before us, is it possible to believe 
that, with the exception of our little planet, all the 
other planets of the system, all the hundreds of 
comets, all the systems of the universe, are to our 
reason made in vain ? It is doubtless possible that 
the Almighty Architect of the universe may have 
had other objects in view, incomprehensible by us, 
than that of supporting animal and vegetable life in 
these magnificent spheres ; but as the question we 
are discussing is one in which we can appeal only to 
human reason, and as human reason in its highest 
form cannot discover these other objects, we the 
inhabitants of one of the least of these spheres, which 
has for immeasurable periods of time been preparing 
for the residence of man, must believe, under the 
guidance of that reason, that they were destined 
certainly, like our Earth, for an intellectual race, and 
destined probably for a previous and lengthened 
occupation by plants and animals, in order that their 
inhabitants may study on the tombstones of the past 
those miraculous processes of growth and decay, of 
destruction and renovation, by which there has been 
provided for them so noble an inheritance. 

In his celebrated sermon On the Origin and Frame 
of the World, to which we have already referred, 



CHAP. XII. GENERAL SUMMARY. 189 

Dr. Bentley has taken a view of this part of the 
question which, though slightly different from ours, 
leads him to the same conclusion. Considering " that 
the soul of one virtuous and religious man is of 
greater worth and excellency than the Sun and his 
planets, and all the stars in the world/' Dr. Bentley 
expresses his willingness to believe, that w their use- 
fulness to man might be the sole end of their creation, 
if it could be proved that they were as beneficial to 
us as the Polar Star was formerly for navigation, or 
as the Moon is for producing the tides, and lighting 
us in winter nights/' " But/' he adds, " we dare not 
undertake to shew what advantage is brought to us 
by those innumerable stars in the galaxy and other 
parts of the firmament, not discernible by naked eyes, 
and yet each many thousand times bigger than the 
whole body of the Earth. If you say, they beget in 
us a great idea and veneration of the mighty Author 
and Governor of such stupendous bodies, and excite 
and elevate our minds to His adoration and praise ; 
you say very truly and well. But would it not raise 
in us a higher apprehension of the infinite majesty 
and boundless beneficence of God, to suppose that 
these remote and vast bodies were formed not 
merely upon our account to be peeped at through an 
optic glass, but for different ends and nobler pur- 
poses ? And yet who will deny but there are great 
multitudes of lucid stars even beyond the reach of 
the best telescopes ; and that every visible star may 



190 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XII. 

have opaque planets 1 revolving about them which we 
cannot discover ? Now, if they were not created for 
our sakes, it is certain and evident that they were 
not made for their own ; for matter has no life nor 
perception, is not conscious of its own existence, nor 
capable of happiness, nor gives the sacrifice of praise 
and worship to the Author of its being. It remains, 
therefore, that all bodies were formed for the sake of 
intelligent minds : and as the Earth was principally 
designed for the being and service and contemplation 
of men ; why may not all other planets be created 
for the like uses, each for their own inhabitants which 
have life and understanding ?" 2 

Various attempts have been made, but without 
much success, to give a popular illustration of the 
argument from analogy, by which we infer the exist- 
ence of inhabitants in the planets, from their simila- 
rity to the Earth. M. Fontenelle, the first person who 
attempted this, has given the following illustration of 
it : — " Suppose," says he, " that there never had been 
any communication between Paris and St. Denis, and 
that a person who had never been out of the city 

1 This is the earliest allusion, we remember, to dark bodies in the sidereal re- 
gions, unless Dr. Bentley uses the word opaque in contradistinction to self-lumi- 
nous bodies. The planets in single or binary systems are invisible from their 
distance, not from their being unable to reflect light, Mr. Pigot had long ago 
concluded, from various celestial phenomena, that there are " primary invisible 
bodies or unenlightened stars that have ever remained in eternal darkness." The 
late Professor Bessel having found that the proper motions of Sirius and Procyon 
deviate very sensibly from uniformity, has come to the conclusion, that they de- 
scribe orbits in space under the influence of central forces round dark or non-lumi- 
nous central bodies, not very remote from the stars themselves. 

2 Eighth Sermon, pp. 5, 6 



CHAP. XII. GENERAL SUMMARY. 191 

was upon the towers of Notre Dame, and saw St. 
Denis at a distance : He is asked if he believes that 
St. Denis is inhabited, like Paris. He will boldly 
answer, No. For he will say, I see distinctly the 
inhabitants of Paris ; but those of St. Denis I do not 
see ; and I never heard anybody speak of them. It 
is true, some will tell him, that from the towers of 
Notre Dame he cannot see the inhabitants of St. 
Denis, on account of the distance ; — that all that he 
can see of St. Denis greatly resembles Paris ; — that 
St. Denis has steeples, houses, and walls, and that it 
may very well resemble Paris in being inhabited. 
All this will produce no effect upon my Parisian ; he 
will persist in maintaining that St. Denis is not in- 
habited, as he sees nobody. Our St. Denis is the 
Moon, and each of us is this citizen of Paris, who 
was never out of it. You are too severe, said the 
Marchioness ; we are not such fools as your citizen ; 
for, as he sees that St. Denis is just like Paris, he 
must have lost his reason, if he does not believe that 
it is inhabited ; but the Moon is not at all made 
like the Earth. Take care, madam, I replied ; for 
if the Moon in every respect resembles the Earth, 
you will be obliged to believe that the Moon is in- 
habited/' 1 

This illustration is certainly defective ; for, as 
Eontenelle subsequently remarks, the Moon does 
not so much resemble the earth as St. Denis does 

1 (Kuvres de Fontenelle, 2de Series, vol. ii. p. 49, edit. 1758. 



192 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XII. 

Paris. The mistake which the author commits arises 
from his not comparing the Earth with a planet, 
like Jupiter having satellites, and clouds, and trade 
winds, and a diurnal motion. In this case, the 
citizen should have been a villager looking at Paris 
from the steeple of St. Denis, and his answer should 
have been, I think it very probable that there are or 
have been inhabitants in Paris, but it is possible 
that they may have all left it, or have not yet ar- 
rived. It is just possible, too, that these walls may 
never have been a protection to inhabitants, nor these 
churches thronged, nor these houses occupied ; but 
if this were the case, the sovereign who founded the 
city, who encircled it with a wall, who erected the 
churches, and who built the houses, must have been 
a fool or a madman. 

A very different illustration is given by Huygens : 
" If any person," says he, " were shewn, in the body 
of a dissected dog, the heart, the stomach, the lungs, 
the intestines, and then the veins, the arteries, and 
the nerves, then, though he never saw the open body 
of an animal, he could hardly doubt that the same 
structure and variety of parts existed in the ox, the 
sow, and other quadrupeds. • In like manner, if we 
knew the nature of one of the satellites of Jupiter 
and Saturn, would we not believe that the very 
same things which were found in it would be found 
in all the other satellites? And, if we saw any- 
thing in one comet, we would conclude that this was 



CHAP. XII. GENERAL SUMMARY. 193 

the structure of all. There is therefore, much weight 
in conclusions drawn from analogies, and in infer- 
ences from things that are seen to things that are 
not seen/' 1 

The author of the Essay against a Plurality of 
Worlds, considers the illustration of Fontenelle as 
unfair; and he gives the following modification of 
it as representing his own argument more fairly : — 

" Let it be supposed/' he says, " that we inhabit 
an island, from which innumerable other islands are 
visible, but the art of navigation being quite un- 
known, we are ignorant whether any of them are 
inhabited. In some of these islands are seen masses 
more or less resembling churches, and some of our 
neighbours assert that these are churches ; that 
churches must be surrounded by houses, and that 
houses must have inhabitants ; others hold that the 
seeming churches are only peculiar forms of rocks : 
in this state of the debate everything depends upon 
the degree of resemblance to churches which the 
forms exhibit. But suppose that telescopes are in- 
vented and employed with diligence on the question- 
able shapes. In a long course of careful and skilful 
examination, no house is seen, and the rocks do not 
at all become more like churches, rather the contrary. 
So far, it would seem, the probability of inhabitants 
in the islands is lessened. But there are other rea- 
sons brought into view. Our island is a long extinct 

1 Cosmotheoros, &c, lib. i Hugenii Opera, torn. ii. pp. 652, 653. 
N 



194 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XII. 

volcano, with a tranquil and fertile soil, but the other 
islands are apparently somewhat different. Some of 
them are active volcanoes, the volcanic operations 
covering, so far as we can discern, the whole island : 
others undergo changes, such as weather or earth- 
quakes may produce ; but in none of them can we 
discover such changes as shew the hand of man. For 
these islands, it would seem, the probability of inha- 
bitants is further lessened. 1 And so long as we have 
no better evidence than these for forming a judg- 
ment, it would surely be accounted rash to assert 
that the islands in general are inhabited ; and un- 
reasonable to blame those who deny or doubt itc 
Nor would such blame be justified by adducing the- 
ological or a priori arguments ; as that the analogy 
of islands with islands makes the assumption allow- 
able ; or that it is inconsistent with the plan of the 
Creator of islands to leave them uninhabited. JFor we 
know that many islands are or were long uninhabited. 
And if ours were an island occupied by a numerous, 
well-governed, moral, and religious race, of which the 
history was known, and of which the relation to the 
Creator was connected with its history ; the assump- 
tion of a history, more or less similar to ours, for the 
inhabitants of the other islands, whose existence was 
utterly unproved, would, probably, be generally 



1 The observation of volcanoes and church-like rocks, by the telescope, has no 
parallel in the analogy of the planets. It is not the moon that our author is deal- 
ing with, but innumerable planets. 



CHAP. XII. GENERAL SUMMARY. 195 

deemed a fitter field for the romance writer than 
for the philosopher. It could not, at best, rise above 
the region of vague conjecture/' 1 

This illustration is, we think, so unfair, and so 
constructed to answer the author's purpose, that we 
concur in his opinion that the probability of the 
islands being inhabited "does not rise above the 
region of vague conjecture/' No illustration indeed 
can be fair or effective, unless it relates to separate 
and independent works of God, from the condition of 
one of which we draw inferences by analogy relative 
to the state of others of which we know nothing, 
excepting their points of similitude. In the illus- 
tration of Huygens, for example, the dog, the ox, and 
the sow, are independent existences, of whose inter- 
nal structure we know nothing; but having found 
certain organs upon dissecting the dog, we infer the 
existence of the same organs in the ox, from the 
external similitude in their general form, and in 
various external parts. In the parallel between 
islands and planets, the peopled islands should have 
been invested with certain properties or conditions 
necessary for its inhabitants, which should have been 
possessed by the other islands. The inhabited island, 
too, should have been made as small in reference to 
the rest as the Earth is to Jupiter and Saturn. But 
independent of these defects in the illustration, the 
mind of the reader is otherwise prepared to admit 

1 01 'the. Plurality of Worlds, An Essay, pp. 157-159. 



196 MORE WOKLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XII. 

that they may have no inhabitants, because we know 
of hundreds of islands without inhabitants. We can 
assign also a very good reason why they were made, 
and why they are not inhabited, and if we were to be 
assured of the fact, it would excite no surprise what- 
ever. We could not say that God therefore made 
them in vain, because when the art of navigation is 
discovered, they may be found to contain gold and 
silver, coal and iron, and excellent harbours, such as 
exist in our inhabited island. We, the islanders, 
may suppose also, that the islands either have been 
or will be inhabited, and we are entitled to make this 
supposition, because we must have been originally 
created upon our own island, and not brought to it 
by the art of navigation ; and consequently, the same 
creation of inhabitants may have taken place, or may 
yet take place, in the uninhabited ones. It is obvious, 
from these remarks, that the previous knowledge of 
the reader, to whom the appeal is made, influences 
what he conceives would be the speculation of the 
islander ; and the confusion of ideas which thus takes 
place, renders the illustration illusory. 

The best illustration which we can conceive, is to 
suppose a philosopher contemplating from a distance 
the bodies of the Solar system, and wholly ignorant 
of their condition. He examines them so as to 
acquire all the knowledge which we possess of their 
size —their motions — the influences they receive from 
the sun, and all the phenomena disclosed by the 



CHAP. XII. GENERAL SUMMARY. 197 

telescope. He knows nothing about their being in- 
habited or uninhabited, but being permitted to visit 
the Earth, he finds it inhabited, and observes the 
relation which exists between vegetable, animal, and 
intellectual life, — the influences which emanate from 
the sun and moon, and the days and nights, and 
seasons and atmospheric changes which characterize 
our globe. He then takes his place in the distance, 
and pondering over all the bodies of the system, he 
will doubtless conclude that they are all inhabited 
like the Earth. Had he first visited Jupiter, with its 
gorgeous magnitude and numerous satellites, and 
found it inhabited, he might have conceived it pos- 
sible that as the monarch of the system, it might 
alone have enjoyed the dignity of being the seat of 
life ; but even in this case, the force of analogy would 
have compelled him to view the Solar system as one 
great material scheme planned by its Creator, as the 
residence of moral and intellectual life. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

KEPLY TO OBJECTIONS DRAWN FROM GEOLOGY. 

In the preceding chapters we have submitted to 
the reader the facts and arguments by which the 
doctrine of a plurality of worlds may be maintained, 
and we have, at the same time, endeavoured to 
answer a variety of objections of a moral and scien- 
tific nature, which naturally presented themselves in 
discussions involving so many considerations. We 
have now, however, a more arduous duty to perform. 
The author of the Essay to which we have frequently 
had occasion to refer, has devoted a whole volume to 
an elaborate attack upon the doctrine we have been 
supporting. With acquirements of the highest order, 
and talents of no common kind, which, we think, 
might have been more usefully employed, he has 
marshalled all the truths and theories of geology, and 
all the facts of astronomy, against popular and deeply 
cherished opinions, — opinions which the humblest 
Christian has shared with the most distinguished 
philosophers and divines, and which no interests, 
moral or religious, require us to surrender. In ques- 



CHAP. XIII. OBJECTIONS DRAWN FROM GEOLOGY. 199 

tions of doubtful speculation with which vulgar error 
is largely mingled, we applaud the writer who boldly 
girds himself for the task of exposing presumption 
and ignorance, however generally they may prevail ; 
but in the case with which we are dealing, where the 
opinions assailed are far more probable than the 
theories and subtleties by which they are to be super- 
seded ; where they are entrenched in sound analogies 
and embalmed in the warmth of the affections, and 
hallowed by immortal names, we can ascribe to no 
better feeling than a love of notoriety any attempt 
to ridicule or unsettle them. 

The first and the most plausible of the arguments 
maintained by the Essayist is drawn from geological 
facts and theories. We have already, in a preceding 
chapter, explained these facts, and admitted, with 
certain limitations, (which, to give our opponent 
every advantage, we at present abandon,) that during 
a long period of time when the Earth was preparing 
for the residence of man, it was the seat only of vege- 
table and animal life. 

Since the Earth, then, was during a very long time 
(a million 1 of years we shall say) uninhabited by 
intelligent beings, our author draws the conclusion 
that all the other planets may be occupied at present 
with a life no higher than that of the brutes, or with 



1 We use this number merely to avoid circumlocution. The Essayist uses the 
word myriads of generations, and myriads of years, as the period of only one of the 
earliest formations! 



200 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XIII. 

no life at all ; that is, that there is not a plurality 
of worlds inhabited by rational beings. Now this is 
not the conclusion which the premises authorize. If 
God took a million of years to prepare the Earth for 
man, the probability is, that all the planets were 
similarly prepared for inhabitants, and that they are 
now occupied by rational beings. If one or more of 
them are only in the act of being prepared, and are 
not yet the seat of intelligence, analogy forces us to 
the conclusion, that they are now occupied by the 
lower animals, and that they will in due time be inha- 
bited like the Earth by rational beings. The asser- 
tion that they may be occupied by no life at all, is 
contrary to analogy, unless we suppose that all the 
planets are only in that stage of preparation which 
preceded the protozoic age, — a supposition which 
no person is entitled to make, which the Essayist 
himself does not make, but which, if it were true, 
would prove that the time is approaching when all 
the planets are to pass through the same stages of 
revolution to which the Earth has been subjected. 

According to the Nebular hypothesis adopted by 
our author, the exterior planets, Neptune, Uranus, 
Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, with all the thirty 
Asteroids, were thrown off in rings from the 
Solar atmosphere of fire-mist, and condensed into 
planets long before the Earth was thus formed ; and 
as the operation of planet-making, to use a phrase of 
his own, was begun upon all the more important 



CHAP. XIII. OBJECTIONS DRAWN FROM GEOLOGY. 201 

planets long before ours had emerged from chaos, all 
these worlds must have been ready for the reception 
of inhabitants before our race occupied the Earth. 
Analogy, therefore, authorizes us to conclude not that 
they may be, but that they are inhabited. 

It is admitted by every geologist that the Earth 
was not only made to be a fit residence for the human 
family, but that it was made in such a manner that 
man might see the wonderful processes by which it 
was prepared, and read its vast chronology in the 
history of its fossil remains. Is it not probable, there- 
fore, that the other planets were formed in a similar 
manner, and with a similar object ? And if analogy 
leads us to believe that all the planets have been or 
are in the azoic, or protozoic, or palceozoic, or neozoic 
stage of formation, the conclusion is inevitable, that 
they are occupied by beings formed after God's 
image ; and consequently, that there is a plurality of 
worlds. We may put the argument in a simpler 
form. In the time of Huygens and Fontenelle and 
Bentley, when the Mosaic account of the creation was 
adopted in its literal meaning, the argument from 
analogy had a certain degree of force. Has that 
degree of force been diminished by the subsequent 
discovery or supposition that a million of years, in 
place of six days, were occupied in the preparation of 
the Earth ? The argument from analogy is not only 
not affected by this discovery, but the discovery itself 
furnishes us with the new ground of analogy, that 



202 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XIII, 

planets are made for the very purpose of being in- 
habited, — that they are made in such a way as to 
teach their inhabitants the wonderful processes by 
which the Almighty has made them, — and that 
they are made of materials essentially necessary for 
man's personal and social happiness. Man was not 
made for the planet — but the planet was made for 
man. 

Quitting the ground of analogy, our author has 
recourse to what we consider the most shallow piece 
of sophistry which we have ever encountered in 
modern dialectics. He founds an elaborate argument 
on the mutual relation of an atom of time and an 
atom of space, comparing the different periods of 
time occupied in the formation of the Earth with the 
different distances of the systems in space. In this 
process, he divides the great geological period into 
four periods of time, and the infinity of space into 
four lengths of space ; and he " assumes that the 
numbers which express the antiquity of the four 
periods" are " on the same scale as the numbers which 
express the four magnitudes," or lengths of space. 
We have placed these periods in contrast in the fol- 
lowing table, to exhibit clearly the nature of the 
argument : — 

Time. Space. 

1. " The Present organic condition of 1. u The magnitude of the Earth." 

the Earth." 

2. " The Tertiary period of geologists 2. " The magnitude of the Solar sys- 

which preceded that." tern compared with the Earth." 



CHAP. XIII. OBJECTIONS DRAWN FROM GEOLOGY. 203 

Time. Space. 

3. " The Secondary period which was 3. " The distance of the nearest -fixed 
anterior to that." stars compared with the Solar 

system." 
L " The Primary period which pre- 4. " The distance of the most remote 
ceded the Secondary." nebulce compared with the nearest 

fixed star." 

In this table of Time and Space, the time during 
which the Earth has been in its present condition, 
which is nearly 6000 years, is contrasted with the 
magnitude of the Earth, which is 7926 miles in 
diameter, and these numbers are units in the scale, 
the one being called an atom of time compared with 
the duration of the primary geological period, and 
the other an atom of space compared with the dis- 
tance of the remotest nebulae. Now the importance, 
or the significance of the Earth, in regard to space, 
is fairly measured by its diameter of 7926 miles, 
which is a fixed quantity ; but its significance with 
regard to time is not measured by 6000 years, because 
its duration is constantly increasing, and every year 
adds to its significance ; that is, the atom of time is 
approximating to infinity, while the atom of space is 
invariable. Admitting, however, our author's pre- 
mises, let us consider his extraordinary conclusions : — 

" We find," says he, u that man (the human race 
from its present origin till now) has occupied but an 
atom of time, as he has occupied but an atom of 
space." And again, — 

" The scale of man's insignificance is of the same 
order in reference to time as to space. . . . 



204 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XIII. 

If the Earth as the habitation of man is a speck in 
the midst of an infinity of space, the Earth as the 
habitation of man is also a speck at the end of an 
infinity of time. If we are as nothing in the sur- 
rounding universe, we are as nothing in the elapsed 
eternity ; or rather in the elapsed organic antiquity 
during which the Earth has existed, and been the 

abode of life Or is the objection this ? 

That if we suppose the Earth only to be occupied 
with inhabitants, all the other objects of the universe 
are wasted, turned to no purpose ? Is zvork of this 
kind unsuited to the character of the Creator ? But 
here, again, ive have the like icaste in the occupation 
of the Earth. All its previous ages have been wasted 
upon mere brute life ; often, so far as we can see, for 
myriads of years, upon the lowest, the least conscious 
forms of life, upon shell-fish, corals, sponges. Why, 
then, should not the seas and continents of other 
planets be occupied at present with a life no higher 
than this, or with no life at all ? . . . 
The intelligent part of creation is thrust into the 
compass of a few years in the course of myriads of 
ages ; why, then, not into the compass of a few miles 
in the expanse of systems ? .... If then 
the Earth be the sole inhabited spot in the work 
of creation, the oasis in the desert of our system, 
there is nothing in this contrary to the analogy of 
creation." 

That is, The Earth, the atom of space, is the only 



CHAP. XIII. OBJECTIONS DRAWN FROM GEOLOGY. 205 

one of the planetary and sidereal worlds, that is in- 
habited, because it was so long toithout inhabitants, 
and has been occupied only an atom of time ! If 
any of oar readers see the force of this argument, 
they must possess an acuteness of perception to 
which we lay no claim. To us it is not only illo- 
gical ; — it is a mere sound in the ear, without any 
sense in the brain. What relation is there between 
the short period of man's occupation of the Earth, 
and the small portion which he occupies in space ? 
If there is such a relation, that we can reason from 
the truth of the first to the probability of the second, 
then we can reason as justly from the truth of the 
second to the probability of the first. Now, let us 
suppose it to be as certain that the Earth is the 
only inhabited planet, as it is certain that Man has 
occupied the Earth only for the short period of 
6000 years, could any rational being allege that 
because man occupied only an atom of space, he 
therefore must live only an atom of time upon the 
Earth ? 

But even if we admit the result with regard to 
Man, the argument does not apply to other intellec- 
tual beings than Man — to an inferior or to a superior 
race that never occupied the Earth at all. If Man is 
thus limited by a syllogism to the occupation of one 
planet, one atom of space, — an angelic race, who 
never lived on the Earth at all, may be indulged with 
the occupation of Jupiter. But, farther, let us sup- 



206 MORE WOKLD THAN ONE. CHAP. XIII. 

pose that we learn by the telescope that every planet 
and satellite in the Solar system is inhabited by 
Man, he would still occupy but an atom of space, 
and our author's argument would go to prove that 
none of the fixed stars or binary systems are inha- 
bited. In like manner, if we could prove that the 
binary systems were inhabited, the sum of them all 
would be but an atom of space, and our author would 
still rejoice in his conclusion, that the clusters of stars 
and nebulae were uninhabited vapour. 

If the reasoning which we have examined be 
sound in its nature, which it is not, it would fail 
entirely by a change in the premises. If it is pro- 
bable, as we have already shewn it is, that the time 
of the Earth's preparation was comparatively short — 
If it be possible, which we aver it is, that intelligent 
beings occupied the Earth previous to man ; and if 
it is probable that Man will continue to occupy 
the Earth during a period equal, or approximating 
to the period of the Earth's preparation, the whole 
of our author's argument has neither force nor 
meaning. 

But even if the Almighty has spent a million of 
years in preparing the crust of the Earth as a suitable 
residence for man, by the slow operation of secondary 
causes, and has deposited the remains of vegetable 
and animal life in each member of its formation, in 
order to enable man to read the history of His omni- 
potence and wisdom, is that any reason why the 



CHAP. XIII. OBJECTIONS Ml AWN FROM GEOLOGY. 207 

Earth, the residence of man, should, among countless 
and more glorious worlds than his own, be the only 
one that is inhabited? Eeason and common sense 
dictate a very different opinion. If nearly infinity of 
time has been employed to provide for intellectual 
and immortal life so glorious an abode, is it not pro- 
bable that nearly infinity of space will be devoted to 
the same noble purpose ? 

But without availing ourselves of any of these de- 
fects in our author's argument, we may safely meet 
him on his own ground, and try the question by the 
ordeal of his own principles. We admit, then, to the 
fullest extent, that enormous periods of time were 
necessary, by the operation of physical causes, to pre- 
pare the Earth for the human family — not only for 
the past generations of men, but for all future gene- 
rations, and possibly for higher orders of intelligence 
that may succeed them. But the enormous duration 
of past time, which geological phenomena require, 
rests on the hypothesis that these phenomena are 
due to physical causes similar in their nature to those 
which are now in operation. If we believe, then, 
that all past changes in the Earth have been the re- 
sult of secondary causes, we cannot possibly deny the 
probability that future changes will be effected by 
the same causes. Now, admitting this hypothesis as 
applicable to the future, the long duration of past 
time in the Earth's history is not more certain than 
the enormous duration of that period during which 



208 MOKE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XIII. 

our Earth, under the action of existing agencies, must 
continue as it is, adapted for the residence of such 
beings as man. Unless, therefore, we suppose that 
rational beings are to disappear from the Earth, 
while it remains fitted to be their home, it is mani- 
fest that the long past, void of intelligent beings, and 
the long future of such beings of some order or other, 
as inhabitants of the Earth, must rest on the same 
hypothesis, — the invariability of the nature of phy- 
sical causes. Any argument, therefore, founded on 
the absolute length of the former of these periods, and 
not on its relative length when compared with the 
latter, must be fallacious. At the present time the 
period of the Earth's occupation by man has been 
short, but every century adds to its length, and 
neither reason nor Scripture leads us to believe that 
the Solar system will ever be destroyed, or that ra- 
tional beings will ever cease to occupy the Earth. 
The age of the inhabited Earth is, therefore, conti- 
nually approximating to that of the ancient Earth, 
and after becoming equal to it, will probably become 
greater, and approximate to infinity. In this way 
the scale of time in the geological argument of the 
Essayist is inverted. The atom of time has, in his 
language, become infinity, while the scale of space 
continues permanent as before. If this is not the 
case, we are involved in the inconceivable absurdity 
that the Architect of the universe took millions of 
years to make a world which was to be occupied only 



CHAP. XIII. OBJECTIONS DKAWN FKOM GEOLOGY. 209 

for a few thousands. To spend a thousand years in 
building and furnishing a house which was to be 
occupied only for one year, would be a supposition 
too ridiculous to be introduced into a volume of 
romance. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

OBJECTIONS FROM THE NATURE OF NEBULA. 

In a preceding chapter on nebulae, we trust we 
have satisfied the candid inquirer that all nebulaa 
are clusters of stars, and that there is no proof what- 
ever, not even its shadow, that in the sidereal regions 
there is what is called nebulous matter, either exist- 
ing in a stationary condition, or aggregating into 
stars. The author of the Essay Of the Plurality of 
Worlds, whose astronomical objections to the doctrine 
of a plurality of worlds we are about to consider, very 
dexterously commences his argument with an attack 
upon that part of the doctrine which relates to 
nebulae. He is not content with a statement of facts, 
out he attempts to throw ridicule upon his opponents 
by the application of words which are calculated to 
influence the minds of ignorant or inattentive readers. 
By calling nebulae clouds, and pieces of comets' tails, 
and the stars into which they are resolved, shining 
dots, pieces of bright curd, luminous grains, and 
lumps of light, he fancies that he has demolished the 
opinion of astronomers that these dots are suns ; 



CHAP. XIV. OBJECTIONS FROM NATURE OF NEBULAE. 211 

that they are "as far from each other as the dog-star" 
is from us ; that each sun has its system of planets, 
and each planet its animal and vegetable life. 

" An astronomer/' says the Essayist, " armed with 
a powerful telescope, resolves a nebula, discerns that 
a luminous cloud is composed of shining dots : — but 
what are these dots ? Into what does he resolve the 
nebula ? Into stars, it is commonly said. Let us 
not wrangle about words. By all means let these 
dots be stars, if we know about what we are speaking, 
— if a star merely means a luminous dot in the sky. 
But that these stars shall resemble in their nature 
stars of the first magnitude, and that such stars shall 
resemble our sun, are surely very bold structures of 
assumption to build on such a basis. Some nebulae 
are resolvable — are resolvable into distinct points — 
certainly a very curious, probably a very important 
discovery. We may hereafter learn, that all nebulae 
are resolvable into distinct points ; that would be a 
still more curious discovery. But what would it 
amount to ? What would be the simple way of 
expressing it without hypothesis and without as- 
sumption ? Plainly this, — that the substance of all 
nebulae is not continuous but discrete; — separable 
and separate into distinct luminous elements ; nebulae 
are, it would thus seem, as it were, of a curdled 
or granulated texture ; they have run into lumps 
of light, or have been formed originally of such 
lumps. Highly curious ! But what are these lumps ? 



212 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XIV. 

How large are they ? At what distances ? Of what 
structure ? Of what use ? It would seem that he 
must be a bold man who undertakes to answer these 
questions. Certainly he must appear to ordinary 
thinkers to be very bold, who, in reply, says gravely 
and confidently, as if he had authority for his teach- 
ing, These lumps, man, are suns ; they are distant 
from each other as far as the dog-star is from us ; 
each has its system of planets, which revolve around 
it ; and each of these planets is the seat of animal and 
vegetable creation. Among these planets some, we 
do not yet know how many, are occupied by rational 
and responsible creatures like man ; and the only 
matter which perplexes us, holding this belief on 
astronomical grounds, is, that we do not quite see 
how to put our theology into its due place and form 
in our system." 1 

This, surely, is neither the language nor the tone 
of a man of science in search of truth, or holding in 
respect the great revelations of astronomy. The 
Essayist triumphantly asks four questions, and tells 
us that he would be a bold man that undertakes to 
answer them. We accept the challenge, and appeal 
to our readers. 

Question 1. How large are the lumps of light, or 
the shining dots, into which the astronomers power- 
ful telescope has resolved the nebulae ? These lumps 
of light are admitted to be stars shining by their 

» Kssay, &c pp. 120-122. 



CHAP. XIV. OBJECTIONS FROM NATUKE OF NEBULA. 213 



own light. Now, it has been shewn by the most dis- 
tinguished astronomers, by Herschel and by Struve, 
that in the various orders of distances in space, the 
distances of the nebulae are the greatest. According 
to the recent researches of Mr. Peters, as given by 
M. Struve, 1 the following are the distances of the 
stars of different magnitudes, as ascertained by a 
process approximately correct : — 



Apparent 
Magnitudes. 


Parallaxes. 


Distances in radii 
of Earth's orbit. 


i, 


0"-209 


98600 


2, 


0*116 


1778000 


3, 


(T-076 


2725000 


4, 


0"-054 


3850000 


5, 


0"037 


5378000 


6, . . 


0"027 


7616000 


81, • 


0*008 


24490000 


Ill, • 


0"-00092 


224500000 



As the nebulae are obviously more remote than any 
of the stars in the above table, and as the nearest of 
these stars must, from their distance, be equal to our 
sun, we are entitled to conclude, that the stars in 
nebulae must be of a much greater size. Sir John 
Herschel observes, that " when we consider that the 
united lustre of a group or globular cluster of stars, 
affects the eye with a less impression of light than a 
star of the fourth magnitude, (for the largest of these 
clusters is scarcely visible to the naked eye,) the idea 
we are thus compelled to form of their distance from 
us may prepare us for almost any estimate of their 

1 Etudes (TAftrono~nie Slellaire. 



214 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XIV. 

dimensions!' A visible dot, or a visible lump, must 
therefore be a body of enormous magnitude, and 
though we cannot give its exact size in miles or 
diameters of the Earth, we are sure that every 
astronomer in the old or the new world will allow 
that we have answered the question with sufficient 
accuracy in reference to the object for which it was 
asked. The size of the dot or lump is of sufficient 
magnitude to he a sun. 

Quest. 2. At ivhat distances are the dots or lumps 
from one another ? 

In order to answer this question, the Essayist 
knows well that we require to have the apparent 
distance between the centres of the dots, and upon 
the supposition that the two dots are at the same dis- 
tance from us, we can easily determine their distance 
from the parallax which maybe assumed for resolvable 
nebulse. In the binary systems there are two stars, 
whose apparent distance is as small as that of the 
dots or stars in the nebulas, and yet every astronomer 
admits that there is ample room for a system of 
planets to circulate round and between them. 

Quest. 3. What is the structure of these dots or 
stars ? The author certainly does not expect to 
learn whether the stars are made of granite or grey- 
wacke. Analogy teaches us that their structure will 
be similar to that of the only sun with which we are 
acquainted. It will consist of a luminous envelope 
enclosing a dark nucleus. 



CHAP. XIV. OBJECTIONS FROM NATURE OF NEBULAE. 215 

Quest. 4. What is the use of the dots or stars ? 
Being large bodies, and self-luminous, they can be of 
no conceivable use but to give light to planets, or to 
the solid nuclei of which they consist. 

Having thus given answers to our author's ques- 
tions, — answers which we are confident would be 
given by every astronomer, may we not ask in return, 
What is the size, and distance, and structure, and 
use of the dots upon his hypothesis, that they are 
patches of cornets' tails or luminous grains ? The 
Essayist is silent. Should he be the very bold man 
to make the attempt, the astronomical world would 
repudiate his theory and his answers. 

But there is another way of meeting objections of 
such an unreasonable character. Our author is a 
firm believer in the geological speculation, that the 
Earth required " myriads of millions" of years for 
its formation, and assuming his principle of contrast- 
ing time and space, may we not ask him in return, 
What was the structure of the primitive Earth ? 
What were the periods of time required for the depo- 
sition of each formation ? And of what use was an 
arrangement requiring myriads of millions of years 
for its completion ? 

Believing that u nebulaB are vast masses of incohe- 
rent, or gaseous matter, of immense tenuity, and 
destitute of solid moving bodies/' a theory which he 
derives from another theory called the nebular hypo- 
thesis, without adducing the least trace of evidence in 



216 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XIV. 

its support, our author boasts, not surely in the spirit 
of the inductive philosophy, that he seems to have 
made it certain that the celestial objects (the nebulae) 
are not inhabited. To this we reply, that we have 
made it more probable that the celestial objects 
are inhabited, — an assertion less presumptuous, but 
more certain than his. 

We have described in a preceding chapter the 
spiral nebulce discovered by Lord Rosse, and we have 
endeavoured to explain the appearance of motion, 
which may be considered as indicated by the spirals 
which they exhibit. With his accustomed boldness, 
and extravagance of speculation, our Essayist has 
made the following observations on these spiral 
forms : — " The comet of Encke," he affirms, " de- 
scribes a spiral gradually converging to the Sun," and 
" in 30,000 years this comet will complete its spiral, 

and be absorbed in the central mass 

But this spiral converging to its pole so slowly, that 
it reaches it only after forming 10,000 circuits (or 
spirals,") while " there are at most three or more 
circular or oval sweeps in each spiral (of the nebulae,) 
or even the spiral reaches the centre before it has 
completed a single revolution round it." From data 
like these, the following theory of the spiral nebulae 
is deduced : — " If we suppose the comet (that of 
Encke) to consist of a luminous mass, or a string of 
masses, which would occupy a considerable arch of 
such an orbit, the orbit would be marked by a track 



CHAP. XIV. OBJECTIONS FROM NATURE OF NEBULAE. 217 

of light as an oval spiral, or if such a comet were to 
separate into two portions, as we have, with our own 
eyes, recently seen Bields Comet do, or into a greater 
number ; then these portions wQuld be distributed 
along such a spiral. And if we suppose a large mass 
of cometic matter thus to move in a highly resist- 
ing medium, and to consist of patches of different 
densities, then some would move faster, and some 
more slowly, but all in spirals, such as have been 
spoken of, and the general aspect produced would be 
that of the Spiral Nebulce, which I have endeavoured 
to describe." A hypothesis more wild and gratuitous 
than this was never before submitted to the scientific 
world. In what part of the nebula do the cometic 
patches reside before they begin their motion of de- 
scent to the nucleus ; and what is the cause of their 
quitting their place of rest ? No comet out of the 
many hundreds that have been observed, has been so 
negligent of its tail as to leave it behind. Encke's 
Comet has been equally careful of its appendage, and 
the division of Biela's Comet was only apparent 
But even if a comet were to separate into a number 
of portions, these portions would, like the half of 
Biela's Comet, travel along with it and again unite 
themselves into one, so that the analogy of this comet 
is destructive of the speculation which it is brought 
to support. 



CHAPTER XV. 

OBJECTIONS FROM THE NATURE OF THE FIXED STARS AND 

BINARY SYSTEMS. 

Having, as our author congratulates himself, 
" cleared away the supposed inhabitants from the 
outskirts of creation, so far as the nebulae are the 
outskirts of creation," he proceeds to consider the 
fixed stars, and examine any evidence which he may 
be able to discover as to the probability of their con- 
taining in themselves, or in their accompanying 
bodies, as planets, inhabitants of any kind. We have 
already stated the grounds upon which the most dis- 
tinguished astronomers have believed that single and 
double stars are accompanied with planets similar to 
our own ; and we shall now consider the objections 
which are made to this opinion. 

Beginning with clusters of stars, the author whose 
opinions we have been controverting, justly observes, 
that they are in the same category with resolvable 
nebulae, and he therefore regards it as " a very bold 
assumption to assume, without any further proof, 
that these bright points are suns, distant from each 



CHAP. XV. FIXED STARS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 219 

other as far as we are from the nearest stars. When 
these clusters are globular, Sir John Herschel regards 
their form as " indicating the existence of some gene- 
ral bond of union in the nature of an attractive 
force ;" and assuming that the " globular space may 
be filled with equal stars, uniformly dispersed through 
it, and very numerous, each of them attracting every 
other with a force inversely as the square of the dis- 
tance, . . . each star would describe a perfect 
ellipse about the common centre of gravity as its 
centre/' Sir John therefore conceives that " such a 
system might subsist, and realize in a great measure 
that abstract and ideal harmony which Newton has 
shewn to characterize a law of force directly as the 
distance." 

Referring to this ingenious theory of globular clus- 
ters, the Essayist illustrates it by asserting, that if 
" our Sun were broken into fragments, so as to fill 
the sphere girdled by the Earth's orbit, all the frag- 
ments would revolve round the centre in a year/' and 
as there is no symptom in any cluster of its parts 
moving so fast, he concludes that clusters, like nebu- 
lae, must be extremely rare, that is, vaporous, like the 
tails of comets. In support of this view of the sub- 
ject, he alleges that the boldness of the opposite 
opinion, that they are suns, appears to be felt by our 
wisest astronomer, meaning Sir John Herschel, to 
whom he refers in such a manner as if Sir John 
maintained the same opinion with himself. This, 



220 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XV. 

however, is far from being the case, as his own words 
will prove : u Perhaps" says he, " it may be thought 
to savour of the gigantesque to look upon the indivi- 
duals of such a group as suns like our own, and their 
mutual distances as equal to those which separate 
our sun from the nearest fixed star : yet, when we 
consider that their united lustre affects the eye with 
a less impression of light than a star of the fourth 
magnitude, the idea we are thus compelled to form 
of their distance from us may prepare us for almost 
any estimate of their dimensions/' 1 

The same just views of the sidereal system, in 
which no motion is visible, are taken by Dr. Whewell, 
in his Bridgewater Treatise. 2 " Astronomy," says 
he, " teaches us that the stars which we see have no 
immediate relation to our system. The obvious sup- 
position is, that they are of the nature and order of 
our sun : the minuteness of their apparent magni- 
tude agrees, on this supposition, with the enormous 
and almost inconceivable distance which, from all the 
measurements of astronomers, we are led to attribute 
to them. If, then, these are suns, they may, like 
our sun, have planets revolving round them, and 
these may, like our planet, be the seats of vegetable, 
animal, and rational life: — we may thus have in 
the universe worlds, no one knows how many, no one 
can guess how varied ; but, however many, however 



1 Outlines, &c, § 866, referred to by the E^sayiet. 
» Book III. chap. ii. p. 270. 



CHAP. XV. FIXED STARS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 221 

varied, they are still but so many provinces in the 
same empire, subject to common rules, governed by 
a common power/' 

From the globular clusters of stars our author pro- 
ceeds to the binary systems, of which we have treated 
in a preceding chapter. He admits that the law of 
universal gravitation is established for several of these 
systems, " with as complete evidence as that which 
carries its operation to the orbits of Uranus and Nep- 
tune/' but he endeavours to shew that each of the 
stars of the best known binary systems, a Centauri 
and 61 Cygni, "may have its luminous matter dif- 
fused through a globe as large as the Earth's annual 
orbit" and that, in this case, " it would not be more 
dense than the tail of a comet/' It is in vain to argue 
against assertions like these, which can only be met 
by an equally positive denial of them. In the pre- 
sent case, however, we can do more. Sir John Her- 
schel has shewn that the sum of the two masses of 
the double star 61 Cygni, is to that of the Sun as 
0353 to 1, or nearly as 1 to 3*1, and hence he con- 
cludes, that " the Sun is neither vastly greater nor 
vastly less than the stars composing 61 Cygni." The 
conclusion, therefore, of the Essayist, that the matter 
of these systems, " of these brilliant constituents," as 
Sir John Herschel calls them, would fill the Earth's 
orbit, and have the rarity of comets' tails, is contrary 
to astronomical truth. 

We have already seen that Sir John Herschel con- 



222 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XV. 

siders these double stars as suds, " accompanied with 
their trains of planets and satellites/' and has stated 
the conditions necessary for the existence of their in- 
habitants. To our Essayist such a scheme appears 
so complex, that it would be " impossible to arrange 
it in a stable manner/' so as to protect the inhabi- 
tants from such dangers, and he considers himself as 
having overturned Sir John Herschel's view, by 
simply asserting, without a ground even for the as- 
sertion, that " their sun may be a vast sphere of 
luminous matter, and the planets, plunged into this 
atmosphere, may, instead of describing regular orbits, 
plough their way in spiral paths through the nebu- 
lous abyss to its central nucleus" ! 

Having obtained, as our author sarcastically re- 
marks, " but little promise of inhabitants from 
clustered stars and double stars," he turns his atten- 
tion to the single stars as the most hopeful cases, and 
asks, " what is the probability that the fixed stars or 
some of them really have planets revolving round 
them ?" To this he justly replies, that " the only 
proof that the fixed stars are the centres of planetary 
systems, resides in the assumption that these stars 
are like the sun; — resemble him in their qualities 
and nature, and therefore must have the same offices 
and the same appendages." 

In admitting that the stars, like the sun, shine 
with an independent light, our author attempts to 
reduce the force of this point of resemblance by as- 



CHAP. XV. FIXED STARS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 223 

serting, that " they resemble not only the sun, but 
nebulous patches in the sky, and the tails of comets/' 
and that " there is no obvious distinction between 
the original light of the stars and the reflected light 
of the planets." Now these statements are either 
irrelevant or erroneous. The nebulous patches are 
clusters of stars. It is not true that comets' tails are 
self-luminous, and it is utterly untrue that star light 
and planet light are the same. Our author ought to 
have known that the reflected light of the planets 
contains precisely the same definite dark lines in their 
spectra as the light of the sun, which it ought to do, 
as it is the same light ; while it has been proved by 
the direct observations of Fraunhofer and others, that 
the light of Sirius, Procyon, and other stars, is 
essentially different, having definite dark lines which 
do not exist in the light of the sun. 

His next assertion is, that though the mass of cer- 
tain stars is one-third of that of the sun, yet their 
matter may be diffused through a sphere equal to the 
earth's annual orbit, and that this may be the matrix, 
so to speak, both of the sun and planets of a system 
not yet formed — thus taking for granted the truth of 
the nebular hypothesis, adopted by the author of the 
Vestiges of Creation, and maintained only by persons 
who have very erroneous ideas of creation. The worlds 
were not made by the operation of law, but by the 
immediate agency of the Almighty. Sir Isaac New- 
ton considered the nebular theory as tending to 



224 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XV. 

Atheism, and in his five interesting letters to Dr. 
Bentley, he has ably controverted it. " The growth 
of new systems/' he says, " out of old ones, (the doc- 
trine maintained by the Essayist,) without the medi- 
ation of a Divine power, seems to me apparently 
absurd/' " The diurnal rotation of the planets could 
not be derived from gravity, but required a Divine 
arm to impress them/' " The same power/' says 
Newton, " whether natural or supernatural, which 
placed the sun in the centre of the six primary pla- 
nets, placed Saturn in the centre of the orbs of his 
five secondary planets ; and Jupiter in the centre of 
his four secondary planets ; and the Earth in the 
centre of the moon's orbit ; and therefore had this 
cause been a blind one, without contrivance or design, 
the sun would have been a body of the same kind 
with Saturn, Jupiter, and the Earth ; that is, with- 
out light or heat. Why there is one body in our 
system qualified to give light and heat to all the rest, 
I know no reason, but because the Author of the 
system thought it convenient : and why there is but 
one body of this kind, I know no reason, but because 
one was sufficient to warm and enlighten all the 
rest." 1 

That the stars undergo changes in their mechanical 
condition, the Essayist considers to be proved by 
observation. One of these proofs is the different 
colours of different stars, a fact certainly, but in no 

* Newtoni Opera, torn. ir. pp. 430, 430. 



CHAP. XV. FIXED STARS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 225 

respects a proof of change. Had their colours 
changed?* we might have inferred a change of condi- 
tion ; but knowing that no such change takes place, 
our author most presumptuously regards " their 
different colours as arising from their being at dif- 
ferent stages of their progress/' an opinion without 
a shadow of probability either from observation or 
analogy. His next proof of change is derived from 
the " mighty changes of which we have evidence in 
the view which geology gives us of the history of this 
Earth f but this is no proof at all. The changes 
there referred to are mere changes in the crust of 
the Earth, and not in its mechanical condition, and 
changes, too, which would not show themselves even 
to the moon by any change of colour or of aspect. 
K If therefore/' the Essayist continues, " stellar globes 
can become planetary systems in the progress of ages, 
it will not be at all inconsistent with what we know 
of the order of nature, that only a few, or even that 
only one, (our Earth he means,) should have yet 
reached that condition. All the others but the one 
(our Earth) may be systems yet unformed, (or frag- 
ments or sparks as he subsequently calls them,) 
struck off in the forming of the one !" To such a 
succession of assertions and hypotheses it is scarcely 
necessary to reply. Stellar globes have never become 



1 Ptolemy is said to have noted Sirius as a red star, though it is now white. 
Sirius twinkles with red and blue light, and Ptolemy's eyes, like those of several 
other persons, may have been more sensitive to the red than to the blue rays. 



226 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XV, 

planetary systems; and nature has no such order. 
We are thus thrown back to the astronomy of Julius 
Caesar : 

" The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks." 

Shakespeare. 

The next argument adduced by our author, that 
the stars are unlike our sun, is the existence of 
changes in the stars supposed to be indicated by the 
disappearance of some stars, the appearance of others, 
and the variations in the light of a considerable num- 
ber. The disappearance of a star proves only that it 
has turned a dark side to our system, and the appear- 
ance of a new star, that its luminous side has come 
round to us in the course of its rotation ; while the 
variations in the light of others may arise from spots 
upon their surface, from eclipses by their planets, or 
from obscuration by comets' tails, when the varia- 
tions are of an irregular character. From all these 
causes our own sun may be a variable star to other 
planets. To us even its light is diminished when large 
spots come across its disc ; and when we consider the 
great number of comets which belong to our system, 
and the immense magnitude of their tails, the sun's 
light must be occasionally obscured by the interposi- 
tion of these imperfectly transparent bodies. 

That the Fixed Stars are like our sun in every 
point in which it is possible to compare them, will 
not now be doubted we think by our readers. That 
they are suns themselves, as Copernicus, Galileo, 



CHAP. XV. FIXED STARS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 227 

Kepler^ Newton, Huygens, 1 and Laplace, and almost 
every astronomer believes, and as all analogy proves, 
is a doctrine which, we trust, will equally command 
their faith. 

In concluding his chapter on the Fixed Stars, our 
Essayist utters sentiments, and throws out conjectures 
so insulting to Astronomy, and casting such ridicule 
even on the subject of his own work, that we can 
ascribe them only to some morbid condition of the 
mental powers, which feeds upon paradox, and de- 
lights in doing violence to sentiments deeply cherished, 
and to opinions universally believed. We almost 
doubt the accuracy of our vision, when we read the 
conjecture that the glorious stars which compose the 
sidereal universe, — that "Arcturus, Orion, and the 
Pleiades/' which Scripture tells us " God made," were 
never created by Him at all, and " are really long 
since extinct !" He had previously stated, " that in 
consequence of the time employed in the transmission 
of visual impressions, our seeing a star is evidence 
not that it exists now, but that it existed it may be 
many thousands of years ago;" and thinking that 
such a statement might seem to some readers to 
throw doubts upon reasonings which he had employed, 
he makes the following extraordinary observation : — 
" It may be said that a star which was a mere chaos 



1 " I cannot doubt," says Huygens, " along with the greatest philosophers of the 
age, that the Fixed Star3 are of the same nature with the Sun." — Cosmotheoro*, 
lib. ii. p. 705. 



228 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XV. 

when the light by which we see it set out from it, 
may, in the thousands of years which have since 
elapsed, have grown into an orderly world. To which 
bare possibility we may oppose another supposition, 
at least equally possible, that the distant stars were 
sparks or fragments struck off in the formation of 
the Solar system, which are really long since ex- 
tinct, and survive in appearance only by the light 
which they at first emitted ! n 

Now, these two suppositions which our author 
makes at least equally possible, stand in a very dif- 
ferent relation to each other. The first supposition, 
that a world in a state of chaos may have grown into 
an orderly world, has a high degree of probability 
from the fact, which both Scripture and geology 
teach us, that our own Earth passed from a state of 
chaos into an orderly world ; while the second sup- 
position, that the distant stars are sparks struck off 
in the formation of the Solar system, is not only 
utterly false, but absolutely impossible, — impossible, 
too, on the nebular hypothesis to which the author 
has set his seal, and impossible on the wildest hypo- 
theses of creation which have ever issued from the 
disordered brain of humanity. If a spark did escape 
from the grasp of the mighty Artist when He meted 
out the planets with His measure, and gathered their 
waters in the hollow of His hand, it could only have 

1 Sidereal Astronomy, the most exalted branch of human knowledge, is thus 
reduced to the study of sparks struck off in the formation of planets ! 



CHAP. XV. FIXED STARS AND BINARY SYSTEMS. 229 

been a spark or a puff of that mud and steam out of 
which our author has modelled the exterior planets, 
and which, if steam, must soon have expanded into 
its elements before it reached the place of even the 
nearest star in the heavens, or formed the hundred 
million of stars which roll in the immensity of space. 
After such a speculation as this, bordering, as we 
think, on the blasphemous, and in palpable contra- 
diction of the demonstrated truths of sidereal astro- 
nomy, we need hardly put the question with which we 
intended to conclude this chapter. If the stars are 
not suns, for what conceivable purpose were they 
created ? Our author has answered the question 
by asserting, that they were never created at all ! 
To such philosophy and theology we prefer that of 
the poet, — 

" Each of these stars is a religious house ; 
I saw their altars smoke, their incense rise, 
And heard hosannahs ring through every sphere. 
The great Proprietor's all-bounteous hand 
Leaves nothing waste, but sows these fiery fields 
With seeds of reason, which to virtues rise 
Beneath his genial ray." 

Young. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

OBJECTIONS FROM THE NATURE OF THE PLANETS. 

Having sullied the glories of the sidereal world 
by converting the stars and systems which compose 
it, into vapour, gas, and comets' tails, the Essayist 
proceeds to apply the same process to the planets of 
the Solar system, converting those exterior to the 
Earth into " immense clouds with continuous water 
collected at their centre, and the interior ones into 
cinder or sheets of rigid slag like the moon ! while 
the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn are characterized 
as " vapour wandering loose about their atmospheres, 
and neatly wound into balls !" 

This process commences with Neptune, whose 
vast globe he describes as " only a huge mass of cloud 
and vapour, water and air" and as a dark and cold 
world, where the light and heat of the Sun is inca- 
pable of " unfolding the vital powers, and cherishing 
the vital enjoyments of animals ;" — an assumption 
without any evidence to support it. It is true, that 
if we consider the solar influences as emanations 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 231 

following a geometrical law, their power upon the 
surface of Neptune must be greatly enfeebled ; but 
such a law does not exist. Although the Sun is 
nearest the Earth in winter, his heat and light are, 
from different causes, much reduced ; and we know, 
as we have shewn in a former chapter, that there 
may be conditions of the atmosphere of the remoter 
planets which may procure for them a more genial 
influence from the Sun, or there may be tempera- 
tures in their interior which may supply the place of 
it by heat radiated from their surface. 

In the very middle of summer we have cold days 
and nights, with crystals of ice floating in the atmo- 
sphere, and exhibiting their existence by the produc- 
tion of halos round the Sun and Moon ; and in the 
very middle of winter, when the Sun is about to 
return from the southern tropic, we have frequently 
temperatures not very different from those of summer. 
With regard to the Sun's light on Neptune and the 
remoter planets, we have already mentioned that 
with a more sensitive retina, the inhabitants could 
see as distinctly as ourselves. In proof of this we 
may adduce the fact mentioned by Boyle, of a person 
having such a tenderness of retina, that he could, in 
a dark night, see and distinguish plainly colours of 
ribands and other objects which had been placed on 
the inside of his curtains, when he was asleep. The 
same sensibility of the nerves of the ear was shewn in 
another case, where the person could hear at a dis- 



232 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVI. 

tance the softest whispers which no other person 
could at all perceive. 1 

In thus " beginning with the outermost of the 
planets at present known, namely, Neptune/' the 
Essayist exhibits the same ingenuity which he dis- 
played in commencing with the Nebulee. In dealing 
with Neptune his argument rests solely on the dark- 
ness and coldness which is supposed to unfit the 
planet for being the residence of life. He takes no 
notice of the fact relied upon by his opponents, that 
Neptune has certainly one and probably two or more 
Satellites, but starts into a new maze of sophistry, 
by appealing to the Moon ! Under the pretence of 
learning if there is " any general ground for assum- 
ing inhabitants in Neptune/' he tells us that, " the 
chance of learning this, is to endeavour to ascertain 
the fact in the body which is nearest to us/' namely, 
the Moon ; and being quite confident that he is to 
prove the Moon to be unfit for inhabitants, he gives 
us warning of a formidable attack upon our position 
by announcing, that if the Earth be inhabited, and 
the Moon not, we have then no right to assume at 
once, that any other body in the Solar system belongs 
to the former of these classes rather than to the latter. 
A position so illogical and untenable, no philosopher, 
in search of truth, durst here venture to take. Had 
the Moon been the primary planet nearest to the Earth, 

1 Of the Determinate Nature of Effluviums, p. 26, quoted in a MS. of Sir 
Isaac Newton's. 



CHAP. XYI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 233 

the assertion would have been just, but if it were 
revealed to us, that the Moon had no inhabitants, 
it would not diminish, in the slightest degree, the 
probability of Jupiter's being inhabited. We have 
already seen that the Moon has great functions 
to perform, as the satellite of the Earth, even if 
no living thing breathed upon her surface ; but 
no person has ventured to assign any function to 
Jupiter, if he does not resemble the Earth in being 
the seat of life. 

In proceeding to unpeople the Moon, the Essayist 
tells us, that li careful and skilful astronomers, who 
have examined the Moon's surface, have, all of them, 
without exception, been led to the belief that the 
Moon is not inhabited — but waste and barren, like 
streams of lava, or the sands of Africa. To this 
statement we have only to reply, that it is not true. 
Huygens and Sir W. Herschel, Dr. Olbers, and many 
others, have declared their belief that there are in- 
habitants in the Moon, and we believe, that all 
astronomers would come to the same conclusion were 
they satisfied that the Moon had an atmosphere. 
This incorrect assertion on the part of the Essayist is 
followed by other two assertions equally unfounded 
— that there is no water in the Moon, and " no at- 
mosphere and vapour, or air," and that no changes 
have been observed upon her surface. We have 
already proved, that there must be an atmosphere in 
the Moon, and the existence of active volcanoes 



234 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVJ. 

places it beyond a doubt, that there must have been 
changes upon her surface. 

The same observations which apply to Neptune 
are applicable to Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter, — the 
same objections on the part of the Essayist, and the 
same reply to them. Jupiter, however, is the planet 
to which he especially calls our attention ; and after 
much irrelevant speculation respecting the internal 
condition of our globe, as produced by the super- 
incumbent weight of its outer formations, and u al- 
lowing for the compression of the interior parts of 
Jupiter," he pronounces it " tolerably certain that 
his density is not greater than it would be if his 
entire globe were composed of water," and he con- 
cludes that Jupiter must therefore be a mere sphere 
of water. He afterwards states there is " much 
evidence against the existence of solid land" in that 
planet ; but in opposition to this evidence, he subse- 
quently contributes a few cinders at the centre, — 
articles, doubtless, of peculiar value and interest, 
where everything else is water. The existence of 
cinders, however, where there is no heat, and where, 
as we shall presently see, the water is ice, must have 
perplexed his chemistry, and hence he wisely with- 
draws them, by telling us that the waters in Jupiter 
are bottomless, that is, without a nucleus of cinders. 

In order to prove that Jupiter and the exterior 
planets cannot be inhabited, he adduces the extreme 
cold which is supposed to exist upon their surface ; 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 235 

but when his assertion that Jupiter is & sphere of 
water , and if peopled at all, peopled with cartila- 
ginous and glutinous monsters, boneless, watery, pulpy 
creatures, imperfect and embryotic lumps of vitality, 
floating in the fluid, is met with the objection that 
the waters must be frozen, he has no difficulty in 
making Jupiter as hot to answer this one purpose as 
he formerly made it cold to answer another. In this 
wonderful process of adaptation, our author s genius 
and his inductive methods are singularly displayed. 
No difficulty is to him unsurmountable. In his om- 
niscience of speculation he finds a theory for anything 
or everything ; " Even in the outer regions of our 
atmosphere/' he says, " the cold is probably very 
many degrees below freezing, and in the blank and 
airless void beyond, it may be colder still. It has 
been calculated by physical philosophers, on grounds 
which seem to be solid, that the cold in the space 
beyond our atmosphere is 100° below Zero. The 
space near to Jupiter, if an absolute vacuum, in 
which there is no matter to receive and retain heat, 

MAY, PERHAPS, BE NO COLDER THAN IT IS NEARER 

the Sun !" Were we to indulge in arbitrary con- 
jectures like these, we could refute, without argument, 
all our author s objections to a plurality of worlds ; 
but without availing ourselves of so destructive a 
weapon, may we not upon good grounds, prefer the 
probable ice to the possible ivater, and accommodate 
the inhabitants of Jupiter, like Arctic islanders and 



236 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVJ. 

Eussian princes, with very comfortable quarters in 
huts of snow and houses of crystal, warmed perchance 
by subterranean heat, and lighted with the hydrogen 
of its waters, and its cinders not wholly deprived of 
their bitumen ? 

But we are not driven to the necessity of believing 
that Jupiter and the exterior planets are either water 
or ice. That they are neither composed of the one 
material nor the other, is proved by direct experiment. 
If their surfaces were either wholly or partly aqueous, 
the rays reflected from them when the planets are in 
quadrature, would contain, what it does not, a large 
portion of polarized light ; and if their crust consisted 
of mountains, and precipices, and rocks of ice, some 
of whose faces must occasionally reflect the incident 
light at nearly the polarizing angle, the polarization 
of their light would be distinctly indicated 

Had our author not exhibited the great amount of 
his knowledge, we should have charged him with 
ignorance of the various forms and conditions of 
matter in which the same elements may be combined, 
and form bodies of very different densities, but we 
believe that he knows these as well as we do, and, 
in our position, would use them more skilfully. It 
is difficult to understand why Jupiter should be 
made of water. His density is 1*359, (that of the 
Earth being 5*66, and that of water being 1*000,) 
greater even than that of certain specimens of coal, 
far greater than amianthus, and pumice stone, which 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 237 

are lighter than water. Silex or flint, too, occurs 
with such various densities that there are conditions 
of it less dense than Jupiter. In the state of 
tabasheer it is very much lighter than water. In 
the state of siliceous sinter its density is only 1*8. 
In the state of 'opal its density is 1'9, and in certain 
varieties of quartz it is so high as 288. There are 
pitchstones, too, varying from 1*9 of specific gravity 
to 270 ; and there are metals, too, like spongy platina, 
of small specific gravity, so that the hardest mineral, 
and the most compact metal, may exist in Jupiter, 
and yet his density not exceed 1*359. But why 
should the minerals in Jupiter be of the same nature 
as those on the Earth ? May not the elementary 
atoms of matter be there combined according to dif- 
ferent laws, and form spars, and gems, and metals, en- 
tirely different from ours ? Admitting, however, for 
a moment, the supposition, otherwise inadmissible, 
that there is a terrestrial type of inorganic bodies 
which is to be the exemplar for all the planets, we 
have only to suppose these planets to be hollow, or to 
contain large cavities, in order to reconcile their aver- 
age densities with the densities of terrestrial bodies. 

From the watery constitution of Jupiter, the 
Essayist passes to the force of gravity on his surface, 
as an argument against the existence of inhabitants. 
We have already, in a previous chapter, computed 
the force of gravity on Jupiter, and shewn that it is 
only two and a-half times that on our own globe, so 



238 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVI. 

that a man weighing ten stone here would weigh only 
twenty-five on Jupiter, a weight which, with propor- 
tionally strong bones and muscles, he could bear, and 
at the same time work as actively as we do. We have 
all seen corpulent men, weighing twenty-five stone, 
such as Daniel Lambert, a man doubtless incapable of 
the same active exertions as other men ; but this arises 
from his weight not being the result of a due propor- 
tion of bone, muscle, and fat, but a mere accumula- 
tion of the latter. Let us now see how the Essayist 
deals with this question. Admitting, as he does, that 
the force of gravity is the same which we have 
adopted, he remarks, that a " man transferred to the 
surface of Jupiter would feel a stave carried in his 
hands, and would feel his own limbs also, become 
two and a-half times as heavy as they were before. 
Under such circumstances animals of large dimen- 
sions would be oppressed with their own weight. . . . 
An elephant could not trot with two or three ele- 
phants placed upon his back. A lion or tiger could 
not spring with twice or thrice his own weight hung 
about his neck." We request the .reader's attention 
to this disingenuous statement calculated so expressly 
to deceive him. Were an elephant sent to Jupiter, 
two and a-half elephants would certainly not be 
placed upon his back. His head, his trunk, his tail, 
his limbs, and his entrails would all be two and a-half 
times heavier ; but this additional weight would not 
act as if it were placed upon his back. His four 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 239 

limbs would doubtless bear it, but it would not 
hinder him from trotting, a motion, by the way, 
which might be dispensed with in an animal which 
could perform much useful work by doing it more 
slowly. The lion and the tiger would certainly not 
spring very nimbly with such a millstone as twice or 
thrice their weight hung about their neck, but when 
they go to Jupiter, they will not be exposed to such a 
humiliation. The weight will be diffused over every 
part of their frame, and we are sure that the author 
would not place himself within the range of their 
spring on the faith of his own hypothesis. 

It is interesting to mark with what different feel- 
ings Sir John Herschel views the various intensities 
of light and of gravity upon the different planets of 
our system. After enumerating the proportions of 
these different powers, he exclaims, — "Now, under 
the various combinations of elements so important to 
life as these, what immense diversity must we not 
admit in the conditions of that great problem, the 
maintenance of animal and intellectual existence and 
happiness, which seems, so far as we can judge, by 
what we see around us in our own planet, and by 
the way in which every corner of it is crowded with 
living beings, to form an unceasing and worthy 
object for the exercise of the Benevolence and Wis- 
dom which preside over all/' 1 

The arguments against Saturn being inhabited, 

1 Outlines of Astronomy t § 508 



240 MOKE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVJf. 

our author considers to be much stronger than in 
the case of Jupiter. He tells us that " the outer part 
of the globe of Saturn is proved to be vapour by 
his streaks and belts," and that "we must either 
suppose that he has no inhabitants, or that they are 
aqueous gelatinous creatures, too sluggish almost to 
be deemed alive, floating in their ice-cold water, and 
shrouded for ever by their humid skies ! " He " can- 
not tell us," he says, " whether they have eyes or no, 
but probably if they had, they would never see the 
sun ; and therefore," he continues, " we need not 
commiserate their lot in not seeing the host of 
Saturnian satellites, and the ring which to an intel- 
ligent Saturnian spectator would be so splendid a 
celestial object. The ring is a glorious object for 
man's view and his contemplation, and therefore is 
not altogether without its use. Still less need we 
(as some 1 appear to do) regard as a serious misfor- 
tune to the inhabitants of certain regions of the 
planet, a solar eclipse of fifteen years' duration, to 
which they are liable by the interposition of the ring 
between them and the sun." This specimen of our 
author's dialectics, in which a large dose of banter 
and ridicule is seasoned with a little condiment of 
science, forms a painful contrast with the following 
noble passage, in which Sir John Herschel discusses 
the very same subject " The rings of Saturn must 

1 The author here refers to Sir John Herschel, whose authority he quotes for 
the Solar eclipse of fifteen years. — Outlines, &c, § 522. 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 241 

present a magnificent spectacle from those regions of 
the planets which lie above their enlightened sides, 
as vast arches spanning the sky from horizon to 
horizon, and holding an almost invariable situation 
among the stars. On the other hand, in the regions 
beneath the dark side, a solar eclipse of fifteen years 
in duration, under their shadow, must afford (to our 
ideas) an inhospitable asylum to animated beings, ill 
compensated by the faint light of the satellites. But 
we shall do wrong to judge of the fitness or unfitness 
of their condition from what we see around us, when 
perhaps the very combinations which only convey 
images of horror to our minds, may be, in reality, 
theatres of the most striking and glorious displays of 
beneficent contrivance!' 

The remarkable phenomenon, however, of & fifteen 
years' eclipse of the Sun to the regions of Saturn, 
placed under the shadow of the dark side of the ring, 
does not exist, and is therefore not a serious misfor- 
tune to the inhabitants of those regions. Dr. Lard- 
ner, in an elaborate memoir, " On the Appearance of 
Saturn's Eings to the Inhabitants of the Planets/' 1 
has solved the problem of the appearance of the 
system of rings in the Saturnian firmament, and 
described their effect in eclipsing occasionally and 
temporarily the sun, the eight moons, and other 
celestial objects. 

"It is there demonstrated," he says, "that the 

1 Transactions oj the Astronomical Society, 1853, vol xxii. 

Q 



242 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP XVI. 

infinite skill of the great Architect of the universe 
has not permitted that this stupendous annular 
appendage, the uses of which still remain undis- 
covered, should be the cause of such darkness and 
desolation to the inhabitants of the planet, and such 
an aggravation of the rigours of their fifteen years' 

winter, as it has been inferred to be It 

is shewn, on the contrary, that by the apparent 
motion of the heavens, produced by the diurnal 
rotation of Saturn, the celestial objects, including, of 
course, the sun and the eight moons, are not carried 
parallel to the edges of the rings, as has been hitherto 
supposed ; that they are moved so as to pass alter- 
nately from side to side of each of these edges ; that, 
in general, such objects as pass under the rings are 
only occulted by them for short intervals, before and 
after their meridional culmination ; that though 
under some rare and exceptional circumstances and 
conditions, certain objects, the sun being among the 
number, are occulted from rising to setting, the con- 
tinuance of such phenomena is not such as has been 
supposed, and the places of its occurrence are far 
more limited. In short, it has no such character as 
would deprive the planet of any essential condition 
ofhabitability!' 

By arguments " of the same kind, as in the case 
of Jupiter and Saturn, but greatly increased in 
strength," as he alleges, our Essayist banishes inha- 
bitants from Neptune and Uranus^ and he sneeringly 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 243 

" commends the supposition of the probable watery 
nature and low vitality of their inhabitants to the 
consideration of those who contend for inhabitants 
in those remote regions of the Solar system." 

In returning towards the sun, our author pays his 
passing respects to Mars, which he thinks is more 
likely to have inhabitants than any other planet. 
This probability, however, disappears, and he con- 
cedes to this planet the possibility of having " crea- 
tures of the nature of corals and molluscs, saurians 
and iguanodons." 

The thirty asteroids between Mars and Jupiter 
afford our author a new and inviting field for specu- 
lation. He considers them as mere dots, whose form 
is not even known to be spherical. Setting aside 
the theory that they are the fragments of an exploded 
planet, he thinks " they may be the results of some 
imperfectly effected concentration of the elements of 
our system, (of fire-mist or star-dust,) which if it had 
gone on more completely and regularly, might have 
produced another planet between Mars and Jupiter. 
Perhaps they are only the larger masses among a great 
number of smaller ones, resulting from such a pro- 
cess : and it is very conceivable that the meteoric 
stones, which have from time to time fallen upon the 
Earth's surface, are other results of the like process ; 
— bits of planets ivhich have failed in the making, 
and lost their way till arrested by the resistance of 
the Earth's atmosphere !" 



244 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVI. 

In order to explain how there is such " an immense 
number of small bodies" in the Solar system, he be- 
gins by enumerating them in the following manner, 
— " First, Mars, who is only about one-eighth of the 
earth in mass : the thirty small planetoids between 
Mars and Jupiter, the five satellites of Jupiter, the 
eight satellites of Saturn, the six satellites of Uranus, 
and the one satellite of Neptune." Having thus 
found fifty small bodies, he states it to be very 
remarkable that " all this array begins to be found 
outside of the Earth's orbit" and he immediately 
provides a theory of their formation, having appa- 
rently forgotten that nineteen of them are formed, 
according to the nebular theorists, as satellites round 
their primaries in the same manner, and for the same 
purpose, as the Moon was formed from the Earth's 
atmosphere. " That none but masses of this size," 
says he, " are found outside of Mars, appears to in- 
dicate, that the planet-making powers which were 
efficacious to this distance from the Sun, and which 
produced the great globe of the Earth, were, beyond 
this point, feebler, so that they could only give birth 
to smaller masses, to planetoids, to satellites, and to 
meteoric stones. Perhaps we may describe this want 
of energy in the planet-making power, by saying, that 
at so great a distance from the central fire there was 
not heat enough to melt together these smaller frag- 
ments into a larger globe ; or rather, when they 
existed in a nebular, perhaps in a gaseous state, that 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 245 

there was not heat enough to keep them in that state 
till the attraction of the parts of all of them had 
drawn them into one mass, which might afterwards 
solidify into a single globe/' In this singular pas- 
sage it is declared, that the power of making planets 
transposed by the Creator to material laws existing 
on the Sun's atmosphere of fire-mist, is not sufficient 
for its purpose. The power has failed, and the work, 
consequently, has been bungled. The central fire 
was not hot enough, and the article was underdone. 
In explanation of this failure, our author tells us in 
a note, that it is u in our own day a great achieve- 
ment of man to direct the fiery influences which he 
can command, so as to cast a colossal statue in a 
single piece, instead of casting it in several portions ;" 
that is, man has achieved this difficult task, but God, 
or His agency, has failed in it, that is, " in melting 
into a larger globe" the fifty small fragments of satel- 
lites and asteroids, and the thousand and one meteoric 
stones which, owing to the want of a good fire, are 
showered down on the earth occasionally and perio- 
dically for no other purpose than to kill cattle and 
puzzle philosophers. In this explanation, the fifty 
small bodies and the thousand and one meteoric 
stones, are considered as solid fragments , whereas we 
are told in the preceding page that all the nineteen 
satellites are pieces of vapour neatly wound into 
lolls ! 

As the Essayist is not only a believer, but an im- 



246 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVI. 

prover of the nebular hypothesis, his explanation of 
the fifty fragments ought to have had, upon his own 
principles, a more scientific form. After the Earth, 
with its moon, was thrown off from the Sun's atmos- 
phere in a ring or belt, and subsequently solidified, 
the central fire had not sufficient heat to make a 
larger planet than Mars. At the next planetary 
station the fire was still more defective, and could 
not produce a planet at all. Now, we ask how it- 
happened that at the next station, when the heat 
must have been enormously diminished, it had power 
to produce so gigantic a planet as Jupiter ? And we 
ask again how Jupiter himself, whose heat must have 
been excessive, was not able to melt and consolidate 
into one, or to retain as a part of himself, his four sa- 
tellites. It is needless to extend the same questions to 
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, where the central heat 
was so very evanescent, as our author makes it, and 
which are all huge globes of matter compared with 
the inferior planets. 

The two interior planets, Venus and Mercury, are 
depopulated in a single page. The light and heat of 
Venus is admitted to be only " double those which 
come to the Earth/' She may have ci a surface like 
the Moon," or " may have cooled more slowly and 
quietly, like glass which has been annealed in the 
fire." He finds it " hard to say what kinds of ani- 
mals he could place in her, except perhaps the mi- 
croscopic creatures with siliceous coverings, which, as 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 247 " 

modern explorers assert, are almost indestructible by 
heat/' — " Of Mercury/' he says, " we know still less, 
and he has not, so far as we can tell, any of the con- 
ditions which make animal existence conceivable/' 

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, moonless, lifeless. 
A lump of Death — a chaos of hard clay ! 

Opinions of a very different nature from these, we 
have already had occasion to state in a preceding 
chapter, and we must leave it to the judgment of the 
reader to decide upon their relative probabilities. 

In order to combine under one general principle 
the views which he has taken of the condition of the 
individual planets, the Essayist adopts the nebular 
hypothesis, which we have already explained, and 
upon it he erects a scheme or a theory of the Solar 
system, which he considers as having a sort of religious 
dignity, though he fears that, at first, it may appear 
to many, rash, fanciful, and almost irreverent. In 
this scheme, the^re and water of the nebular mass 
nave been separated during their "planet-making 
powers" " the water and the vapour which belong to 
the system being driven off into the outer regions of 
its vast circuit, while the solid masses, .... such as 
result from the fusion of the most solid materials, lie 
nearer the Sun, and are found principally within the 
orbit of Jupiter/' In support of these theories he 
adduces the zodiacal light, itself a creature of theory, 
as an appendage to the Sun, and as the remains of 



248 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVI. 

the Sun's atmosphere extending beyond the orbits of 
Mercury and Venus — " planets which are, therefore, 
within a nebular region, which may easily be con- 
ceived to he uninhabitable. And where this nebular 
region, marked by the zodiacal light, terminates, the 
tvorld of life begins, namely, at the Earth ! The 
orbit of the Earth is the temperate zone of the Solar 
system, and in that zone is the play of Hot and Cold, 
of Moist and Dry possible/' 

In concluding this novel and startling theory of 
the Solar system, the Essayist tells us that "the 
Earth is placed in that region of the system in which 
the planet-forming powers are the most vigorous 
and potent, and that the Earth is really the largest 
planetary body in the Solar system, — its domestic 
hearth, and the only world in the universe;" or, 
which is the same thing, that there are no real planets 
in the system but the Earth. 

Thus man exclaims, " See All things for my use !" 
u See man for mine !" replies a pampered goose : 
And just as short of reason he must fall, 
Who thinks All made for One, not One for All. — Pope. 

We are unwilling to charge the author of such 
theories with cherishing opinions hostile to religion. 
We believe that he is ignorant of their tendency, and 
that he has forgotten the truths of inspiration, and 
even those of natural religion, amid the excitement 
of discussions, from which he is to obtain the high 
reputation of "having accounted for, and reduced 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 249 

into consistency and connexion, a very extraordinary 
number of points hitherto unexplained." But, how- 
ever sincere may be his piety, which we do not ques- 
tion, we tell him, with confidence, that his theories 
are replete with danger, and that young minds will 
draw from them opinions the very reverse of his own. 
When we are told that a planet has been bungled in 
its formation, that meteoric stones are bits of planets 
which have failed in the making, 1 and lost their way, 
can we believe that the all- wise Creator was present 
at the process, "making the earth by His power, 
establishing the world by his wisdom, and stretching 
out the heaven by his understanding ?" 2 Can we 
believe that He who formed the worlds has made only 
one, and that, in place of resting on the seventh day, 
He rested during the whole week of creation, and still 
rests, having transferred His almighty power to cer- 
tain laws of matter and motion, by which the Sun 
and all his planets were manufactured from nebulous 
matter ? Sir Isaac Newton considered the nebular 
hypothesis, though in his time not known by that 
name, as not only absurd, but verging on atheism. 
In reference to the creation of a central and immov- 
able sun, he observes, that to suppose a " central 
particle so accurately placed in the middle (of nebu- 



1 "We know of no blemishes or blunders in creation," says Professor Sedgwick, 
"and were they there, what would it matter to our conception of them, whether 
they sprang from dead material law3 ordained by an all-powerful and all-seeing 
God, or from an immediate defect in creative power ?" 

2 Jeremiah li. 15. 



250 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. OHAP. XVI. 

lous matter in a finite space) as to be always equally 
attracted on all sides, and thereby continue without 
motion, seems to me fully as hard as to make the 
sharpest needle stand upright on its point upon a 
looking-glass. And much harder it is to suppose 
that all the particles in an infinite space should be 
so accurately poised, one upon another, as to stand 
still in a perfect equilibrium. For I reckon this as 
hard as to make not one needle only, but an infinite 
number of them, stand accurately poised upon their 
points/' 1 And in another place he urges another 
objection to the hypothesis : " But how the matter 
(the nebular matter) should divide itself into two 
sorts, and that part of it which is fit to compose a 
shining body should fall down into one mass, and 
make a sun, and the rest, which is fit to compose an 
opaque body, should coalesce, not into one great body, 
like the shining matter, but into many little ones, 
I do not think explicable by mere natural causes, but 
am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and contrivance 
of a voluntary agent." 2 And with respect to the 
diurnal rotation of the planets, he distinctly declares 
that " they could not be derived from gravity, but 
required a divine arm to impress them/' 3 

A more modern, and still living author, who, we 
trust, will long continue an honour to science and to 
his country, has characterized speculations like these, 
as "dashing from hypothesis to hypothesis, and 

i Letters to Bentley, Lett. iv. 2 /& Lett. i. 3 Id, Lett. iv. 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 251 

building a scheme of nature against nature, and 
against the sober interpretation of those who have 
best studied their works/' We will not say of the 
language of the Essayist, when he speaks of Nature, 
or the God of Nature, having failed in producing a 
planet where He intended it to be, and of having 
recorded that failure by broken planets and showers 
of meteoric stones ; a — we will not say what Pro- 
fessor Sedgwick has said of speculations about the 
nebular hypothesis not more absurd, that they are 
" the raving madness of hypothetical extravagance ;" 
but we sincerely, and without desiring to give offence, 
adopt the rest of his declaration, " that it is at open 
war with all the calm lessons of inductive truth, and, 
in any interpretation we can give it, bears upon its 
front the stamp of folly and irreverence towards the 
G-od of Nature/' Philosophers and divines, with 
humbler minds and loftier aspirations, have be- 
queathed to us nobler lessons than these which we 
have been controverting. 

After contemplating the wonderful systems of 
Jupiter and Saturn, with their satellites, Huygens 
bursts into the following noble expressions of his 
views : — " Who, upon studying these systems, and 
comparing them together, can fail to be astonished 

1 "The planets and the stars," says the Essayist, "are the lumps which have 
flown from the Potter's wheel of the Great- worker, the shred coils of which, in His 
working, sprung from His mighty lathe; — the sparks which darted from his awful 
anvil, when the Solar system lay incandescent thereon ; — the curls of vapour 
which rose from the great caldron of creation, when its elements were se- 
parated" !!— P. 243. 



252 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVI. 

at the magnitude and noble preparations of these 
two planets, in comparison with the little and insig- 
nificant Earth of ours ? or whose mind can now 
cherish the belief, that in this one planet, among 
those circling round the Sun, all beauty was to be 
found, all animals, and all beings that could admire 
the heavens ; — that the great Creator of all had in- 
deed placed nothing upon them, and had created such 
vast solid structures, that we dwarfs and mortals 
might look at their light, and, perhaps, study their 
nature/' 1 

The celebrated Emanuel Swedenborg, a name 
not sufficiently respected, has given utterance to the 
same sentiments, in language far from visionary. 
" Any man of an enlarged understanding," he says, 
" may conclude, from various considerations, that 
there is a plurality of Earths, and that they are in- 
habited by human creatures. It is a suggestion of 
reason that so great masses of matter as the planets 
are, some of which far exceed this Earth in magni- 
tude, are not empty balls, created only to revolve 
round the Sun, and to transmit their scanty measure 
of light for the benefit of this Earth ; but that their 
use must needs be more enlarged and eminent. He 
who believes, as every one ought to believe, that the 
Deity created the universe for no other end, but that 
the human race, and thereby the heavens might have 
existence, (for the human race is the seminary of 

1 Cosmotheoros, Lib. ii. p. 699. 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 253 

heaven,) must needs believe also, that wheresoever 
there is an earth, there are human inhabitants/' 
After stating the astronomical facts upon which he 
has been led to these views, and drawing from them 
the conclusion that there is a Plurality of systems, 
with Suns and Planets of their own, he assigns it as 
the object of so immense a creation, that " the visible 
universe, or the heaven, resplendent with stars so 
innumerable, which are so many suns, is only a means 
for the existence of Earths, and of men upon them, 
of whom may be formed a heavenly kingdom." 1 

In language less animated with religious views, 
but not less firm and unhesitating, does the illus- 
trious Laplace, the Newton of France, express his 
belief in a Plurality of Worlds : " Not only," says 
he, " does the Sun act, by his attraction, upon all these 
globes, by forcing them to move round himself, but 
he sheds upon them his light and his heat. This 
beneficent action gives life to the plants and animals 
that cover the Earth, and analogy leads us to believe 
that it produces the same effects upon the planets ; 
for it is not natural to think, that the matter, whose 
peculiarity we see developed in so many ways, is 
barren upon such a large planet as Jupiter, which, 
like our own globe, has its days, its nights, and its 
years, and upon which observations indicate changes 
that suppose very active forces. Man, made for the 
temperature which he enjoys upon the Earth, could 

1 " Concerning the Earths in our Solar System which are called Planets" 



254 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVI. 

not, according to all appearance, live upon the other 
planets : but ought we not to have there an infi- 
nity of organizations suited to the different tempera- 
tures of the globes of the universe ? If the difference 
merely of elements and of climates produces such a 
variety in terrestrial productions, how much greater 
a difference ought there to be in those of the different 
planets and their satellites ! The most active imagi- 
nations cannot form any idea of it ; but their exist- 
ence is very probable/' 1 

Such are the sentiments of philosophers of all 
sects, and of divines of all creeds, and we venture to 
say, that there is no opinion out of the region of 
pure demonstration, more universally cherished than 
the doctrine of a Plurality of Worlds. The Astrono- 
mer who is guided only by analogies — the Philoso- 
pher who has studied the relation between the moral 
and the material universe — the Naturalist who looks 
to the other worlds for creations indicated, but not 
developed, in his own, — the Christian who confides 



1 Exposition du Systeme du Monde, Liv. 5 me , chap. vi. Laplace expresses also 
the opinion, that there is, beyond our system, innumerable suns, which may be 
the centres of as many planetary systems; and that there exist in the celestial 
spheres as many dark bodies as there are stars. Without multiplying extracts 
from the writings of philosophers and divines, it miy be sufficient to state, that 
Dr. Derham, in his Astrotheology, 3d edit., 1717, pp. xlvii, liii, liv, has stated his 
reasons for believing that the fixed stars and planets " are worlds, or places of 
habitation, which is concluded from their being habitable, and well provided for 
habitation." Dr. Paley also, though he does not discuss the subject, evinces his 
opinion when he states, " that even ignorance of the sensitive natures by which 
other planets are inhabited, necessarily keeps from us the knowledge of num- 
berless utilities, relations, and subserviences, which we perceive upon our own 
globe." — Natural Theology, edited by Lord Brougham and Sir Charles Bell, Lon- 
don, 1836, p. 16. 



CHAP. XVI. OBJECTIONS FROM THE PLANETS. 255 

only in what is revealed, and the Poet who transfers 
to the stars the affections and memories of the past, 
have all accepted the grand truth, and rejoiced in 
the hopes which it inspires. 

The depth of human reason must become 
As deep as is the holy human heart, 
Ere aught in written phrases can impart 
The might and meaning of this ecstasy, 
To those low souls who hold the mystery 
Of the unseen universe for Dark and Dumb. 

MONCKTON MlLKES. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 

Had the doctrine of a Plurality of Worlds bee 
one of those subjects which merely gratify our curio 
sity, we should not have occupied the reader's time, 
or spent our own, in illustrating and defending it. 
While the scientific truths on which it depends form 
one of the most interesting branches of natural theo- 
logy, and yield the most striking proofs of wisdom 
and design, they are intimately associated with the 
future destiny of Man. 

There are three departments of Natural Theology 
which demand our most earnest attention, — the 
living world around us, the world of the past, and 
the worlds of the future. In the wonderful mechan- 
isms of animal and vegetable life with which we are 
so familiar, and in the inorganic structures amid 
which we dwell, we recognise imperfectly the innu- 
merable proofs of matchless skill and benevolent 
adaptations with which they abound. Our daily 
familiarity with the ordinary phenomena of life, de- 
grades them in our estimation. There is something 
which we deem unclean even in the healthy condition 



CHAP. XVII. THE FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 257 

of animal bodies, and their functions tod their pro- 
ducts, which deters all but professional men from 
their study, and robs them of their inherent claims 
as proofs of design and as incentives to piety. Even 
the chemistry of inspiration by which we live, and 
the science of the Eye and the Ear, those matchless 
proofs of design, on which all our intercourse with 
nature and with society depends, are scarcely known 
to the best educated of the people. 

It is otherwise, however, with that department of 
natural science which treats of the formations and 
fossil remains of an ancient world. With the struc- 
ture and functions of animals which inhabited the 
earth previous to its occupation by man, we have no 
familiarity. We see them only in their graves of 
stone, and beneath their monuments of marble — 
creations which cannot again die, and with which 
everything mortal has ceased to be associated. Time, 
in its most hoary aspect, has invested them with a 
hallowed and a mystic character. The green waves 
have washed them in their coral beds, and after ages 
of ablution in a tempestuous sea, the ordeal of a cen- 
tral fire has completed their purification. The bones, 
and the integuments, and the meanest products of 
animal life, have thus become sainted relics which 
the most sensitive may handle, and the most delicate 
may prize. 

But there is another department of natural science 
which in its interests is deeper and more varied still. 

K 



258 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVII. 

Carrying us back to the birth of matter, before life 
was breathed among its atoms, and before light rushed 
through the darkness of space, Astronomy unites, in 
a remarkable degree, the interests of the past, the 
present, and the future. From the time when the] 
Earth was without form and void to the present 
hour, Astronomy has been the study of the shepherd 
and the sage, and in the bosom of sidereal space the 
genius of man has explored the most gigantic works 
of the Almighty, and studied the most mysterious 
of His arrangements. But while the astronomer 
ponders over the wonderful structures of the spheres, 
and investigates the laws of their motions, the Chris- 
tian contemplates them with a warmer and more 
affectionate interest. From their past and present 
history his eager eye turns to the future of the side- 
real systems, and he looks to them as the hallowed 
spots in which his immortal existence is to run. 
Scripture has not spoken with an articulate voice of 
the future locality of the blest, but Reason has com- 
bined the scattered utterances of Inspiration, and, 
with a voice almost oracular, has declared that He 
who made the worlds, will in the worlds which He/ 
has made, place the beings of His choice. In the 
spiritual character of their faith, the ambassadors of 
our Saviour have not referred to the materiality of 
His future kingdom; 1 but Reason compels us to 

1 Dr. Campbell and other commentators are of opinion that there is nothing 
allegorical in our Saviour's promise to drink new wine with His disciples in His 
Father's kingdom. (Matthew xxvi. 29.) 



CHAP. XVII. THE FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 259 

believe, that the material body, which is to be raised, 
must be subject to material laws, and reside in a 
material home — in a system of many planets — a 
house of many mansions, though not made with 
many hands. 

In what regions of space these mansions are built — ] 
on what sphere the mouldering dust is to be gathered 
and revived, and by what process the immortal being 
is to reach its destination, Keason does not enable us 
to determine; but it is impossible for intellectual man, 
with the light of revelation as his guide, to doubt 
a moment that on the celestial spheres his future is 
to be spent — spent, doubtless, in lofty inquiries — in 
social intercourse — in the renewal of domestic ties, — 
and in the service of his almighty Benefactor. With 
such a vista before us, so wide in its expanse, and so 
remote in its termination, what scenes of beauty — 
what forms of the sublime — what enjoyments, phy- 
sical and intellectual, may we not anticipate, — 
wisdom to the sage — rest to the pilgrim — and glad- 
ness to the broken in heart ! 

"How welcome those untrodden spheres ! 
How sweet this very hour to die ! 
To soar from earth, and find all fears 
Lost in thy light — Eternity. 

Oh ! in that future let us think 

To hold each heart the heart that shares ; 

With them the immortal waters drink, 

And soul in soul grow deathless theirs." — Byron. 

If these expectations be just, how are we to im- 



260 MOEE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVII. 

plant them in the popular mind as incentives to piety 
and principles of action ? The future of the Chris- 
tian is not defined in his creed. Enwrapt in apoca- 
lyptic mysteries, it evades his grasp, and presents no 
salient points upon which either reason or imagina- 
tion can rest. He looks beyond the grave as into a 
nebular region, where a few stars are with difficulty 
descried; but he sees no glorious suns, and no gigan- 
tic planets upon which he is to dwell. It is astro- 
nomy alone, when its simple truths are impressed 
upon the mind, that opens to the Christian's eye the 
mysterious expanse of the universe; that fills it with 
objects which arrest his deepest attention ; and cre- 
ates an intelligible paradise in the worlds to come. 

To the vulgar eye that sees nothing in the stars 
but their light, and to the dark mind that has no 
faith in the verdicts of science, the star-clad firmament 
presents neither associations in the past nor glories 
in the future. To them the stars are truly but 
specks or dots of light, not more interesting than the 
firefly in a summer evening, or the ephemeral sparks 
that fly from the anvil. Their feeble and glimmering 
ray, dimmed by each rising exhalation, and paling 
even before the zephyr's breath, has failed to arrest 
the poet's eye, or gild the painter's canvas. It has 
never lighted the lover to his mistress, nor the pil- 
grim to his shrine, nor the hero to his deed of glory. 
But no sooner does Science with her maoic wand 
marshal the celestial host — planet — satellite and 



CHAP. XVII. THE FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 261 

star — into the systems of worlds which roll in the 
bosom of space, than Faith " takes up the wondrous 
tale," and associates with these bright abodes the 
future fortunes of immortal and regenerated man. 
It places there the loved and the lost — it follows 
them into the celestial bowers — it joins them in the 
anthem to "mortal minstrelsy unknown" — it lis- 
tens to their warning and their welcoming voice, and 
round the joyous hearth which it consecrates in the 
house of many mansions, it assembles hearts once 
severed and broken, and longs to wander beside the 
" rivers of the waters of life" with the prophets that 
expounded it — the sages that enlightened it — the 
martyrs that suffered for it, and the noble victims 
that bled in its cause. Imagination takes up the 
theme where Faith and Reason leave it. The cha- 
riots of flame and the horses of fire that bore Elijah 
from his star of earth, and surrounded Elisha in the 
mountains of Syria, and the wheels of amber and of 
fire which were exhibited to the captive prophet on 
the banks of the Chebar, become, in the poet's eye, 
the vehicle from planet to planet, and from star to 
star, in which the heavenly host is to survey the 
wonders and glories of the Universe. 

If the knowledge of the material world — of its 
facts and of its laws, is thus instructive, and thus in- 
spiring, we must strive to elevate the popular mind 
by the truths of natural science, teaching them in 
every school, and recommending, if not illustrating 



262 MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. CHAP. XVII. 

them, from every pulpit. We must instruct our 
youth, and even age itself, in the geology and physi- 
cal geography of the Earth, that they may learn the 
structure and use of its brother planets ; and we must 
fix in their memories, and associate with their affec- 
tions, the great truths in the planetary and sidereal 
universe on which the doctrine of more worlds than 
one must necessarily rest. Thus familiar with the 
more magnificent works of creation, — thus seeing 
them through the heart, as well as through the eye, 
the young will look to the future with a keener 
glance, and with brighter hopes ; — the weary and the 
heavy laden, 

Lifting their tearful eye unto the stars, 

will rejoice in the vision of their place of rest ; — the 
philosopher will scan with a new sense the lofty 
spheres in which he is to study ; — and the Christian 
will recognise, in the worlds of stars, the gorgeous 
temples in which he is to offer his sacrifice of praise. 



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